(SINGAPORE) - Asia's top security forum should consider building strategic oil and gas stockpiles as part of efforts to ensure steady supplies in emergencies, officials recommended Thursday.

Senior officials of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) held two days of talks in Singapore devoted to the issue of energy security. The discussions came ahead of the annual meeting of ARF foreign ministers to be held in Singapore in July.

Fabrizio Barbaso, a European Commission official who attended the energy meeting, said delegates outlined several key strategies on how to ensure energy security amid record high oil prices and geopolitical threats that could disrupt oil supplies.

One strategy was emergency preparedness "so that in case of a crisis or disruption... appropriate mechanisms of information and consultation can be set up so that people can be duly informed," Barbaso told AFP after the meeting ended.

As part of emergency preparedness, the delegates discussed the creation of strategic stockpiles for oil and possibly natural gas, said Barbaso.

He is the deputy director general of the Directorate General Transport and Energy at the Brussels-based European Commission, the European Union's executive arm.

The senior officials' recommendations are expected to be further discussed by top-level officials next month, and submitted to the ARF foreign ministers in July, he said.

Barbaso said the European Union is reviewing legislation covering strategic oil stockpiling, with the possibility of expanding it to include natural gas. Other strategies recommended at the Singapore meeting included the need to diversify energy sources as well as alternative routes of supply, cutting consumption through more efficient energy use, and additional investments in energy infrastructure.

They also included international cooperation to develop new technologies, including wind and solar power. Nuclear power was discussed as an alternative but some countries raised political concerns over its use, he said.

Delegates also heard presentations from industry experts who said oil prices were unlikely to turn lower because of high demand and rising production costs.

"The speakers... explained that it's very difficult to envisage lower prices in the short to medium term because the cost of extraction of the oil is going up," Barbaso said.

He added that delegates acknowledged high oil prices could spur governments to promote energy efficiency and alternatives.

"High prices will push forward new alternative sources of energy. Society has to adapt to this new element of high oil prices," he said.

"We on the EU side think we have to move as fast as possible towards a low carbon society and high oil prices will create the market conditions which will accompany this rapid movement."

New York crude oil hit a record high 115.45 dollars on Thursday.

ARF is hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and brings together ASEAN's 10 member states with 17 partners including Russia, China, India, Pakistan, the United States and the European Union.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

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