ANTIQUES SHOPS

The IEA, which advises on energy policies of oil consuming nations, said the world was better supplied with oil now than in recent years but warned against calling it an over-supplied market.

"Memories are indeed short: crude prices remain very high in historical terms, and are acting as a drag on household and government budgets in OECD and emerging markets alike," the IEA said in its monthly report.

The report came out as the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was due to meet in Vienna this week to discuss production volumes running at a multi-year highs.

"Nobody knows exactly how oil supplies will develop this summer," said the IEA, referring to the upcoming embargo by the European Union on Iranian oil and continuing talks between Iran and world powers on Tehran's nuclear programme.

The IEA said other bullish factors for oil prices included power sector oil demand this summer and stockpiling by major non-OECD economies including China, which have been accumulating crude in the past months ahead of the Iranian embargo.

It said preliminary data indicated imports of Iranian crude by major consumers had fallen by 1 million barrels per day in April and May from levels seen at the end of last year.

"In months ahead, Iran may need to shut in production volumes if export markets remain similarly constrained and storage fills up," the IEA said.

The agency left its global oil demand growth forecast broadly unchanged at 820,000 bpd.

It said its call on OPEC's oil and stocks also remained broadly unchanged although it was 1 million bpd higher for the second half of 2012 at 30.9 million bpd. The figure was still 1 million bpd higher than OPEC's current production levels.

(Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov; editing by James Jukwey)

Speaking at the Leveson inquiry, John Major, whose tenure as British Prime Minister lasted between 1990 and 1997, said the founder of News Corporation had met him in 1997, asking him to change his stance on Europe.

"Just before the 1997 election it was suggested to me to try to get closer to the Murdoch press and I agreed that I would invite Mr Murdoch to dinner and we did have dinner in February 1997," Major told the inquiry.

"The dinner would have contained the usual amount of political gossip that these occasions tend to have."

"It became apparent in discussion that Mr Murdoch said that he didn't like our European policies and wished me to change our European policies. If we couldn't change those policies he could not and would not support the government.

"It is not often someone sits in front of a prime minister and says to a prime minister: 'I would like you to change your policy or my organisation cannot support you'," Major added.

He said he thought Murdoch was "edging towards" a referendum on leaving the European Union.

But he did not change his views after pressure from Murdoch.

"I made it pretty clear we weren't going to change our policies and we moved on to other matters," he added.

In April, Murdoch told the inquiry: "I have never asked a prime minister for anything."

The Conservatives lost the 1997 election to a resurgent Labour party under Tony Blair, supported by Murdoch titles The Sun and the Times.

(Editing by Steve Addison)