OPEC and Asian energy officials called Sunday for new oil investments and tougher measures to combat speculation in crude markets that some have argued helped fuel last year's oil price spike.

The call came during a one-day energy meeting in Tokyo to discuss volatility in the world oil market. Officials are concerned about another price spike once the world emerges from the global recession. The slowdown has sharply eroded oil demand and driven crude prices down about 65 percent from mid-July levels of $147 per barrel.

The drop in prices, while helping offset some of the pain from the financial meltdown, has undercut investments in the sector. That has led to the delay or cancellation of dozens of projects worldwide and sparked concerns of another oil price spike once demand rebounds.

"Adequate and continuous investment throughout the energy value chain is essential as a means to balancing supply and demand in the future," a statement issued at the end of the meeting said, according to Japan's Kyodo news agency.

The meeting brought together ministers from the 12 Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and many of Asia's biggest oil consumers such as China, India and Japan.

Even as officials warned about the dangers of falling investments, they also voiced worry about speculation in the market. Many in OPEC, including Saudi Arabia, had blamed last year's run-up in prices to almost $150 per barrel on speculators and hedge funds.

"In order to achieve a stable oil market, the influence of excessive speculative activities in the oil exchanges, which lead to price volatility, should be limited through more regulation and control," Hossein Noqrekar-Shirazi, Iran's deputy oil minister for international affairs was quoted as saying by Iran's Press TV.

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi urged his colleagues to confront what he said was unfounded fears about supplies, adding that such perceptions had "largely contributed to skyrocketing prices, in the past," the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

The statement issued by the officials said that volatility in the market is harmful to both producers and consumers and that "financial markets have an impact on oil price formation," according to Kyodo. It said officials, tackling the issue of supervision of over-the-counter markets and transparency, called for "further harmonized actions such as introduction of position limits."

OPEC, along with the International Energy Agency, has repeatedly warned about the dangers of falling investment in the oil sector. While many projects have been scaled back or delayed, many of its most influential members have said they are pressing ahead with oil investments despite the downturn.

Saudi's al-Naimi said his country is going ahead with its commitment to raise "its production capacity to 12.5 million barrels per day by the middle of this year," SPA reported. He added that this would help provide excess supply capacity that would cushion the market.

In March, Saudi Aramco, the oil giant run by OPEC powerhouse Saudi Arabia, said it was planning to spend about $60 billion through 2014 on energy projects.

The state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said Saturday it had earmarked about $80 billion on expanding production and refinery capacity by 2020.

On Sunday, Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheik Ahmed Al Abdullah Al Sabah told the meeting the OPEC member will press ahead with planned oil investment projects with an eye to achieve its production target of 4 million barrels a day by 2020. He said Kuwait was teaming up with Asia's top refiner Sinopec Corp. to build a 300,000 barrels a day refinery in China. It was also carrying out a joint venture with Japanese firms and Petrovietnam to build a 200,000 barrel a day facility in Vietnam.

The minister said the "current economic and price environment, coupled with the uncertainty about climate change policies and the future demand outlook, pose serious challenges to our plans and investments," the official Kuwait News Agency reported.

Kuwait, however, has been among those that has scaled back on projects -- first by scrapping a joint deal with Dow Chemicals and then by postponing the country's already much-delayed fourth refinery.

OPEC, which produces about 35 percent of the world's oil, has been struggling to engineer a rebound in prices.

The producer bloc held off from enacting new production cuts during their meeting last month, opting instead to focus on compliance with an earlier round of cuts totaling 4.2 million barrels per day from September levels.

But the best it has been able to achieve is preventing an even deeper slide in crude prices, that have hovered between $40 to $50 per barrel most of this year.

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Associated Press Writer Diana Elias contributed from Kuwait.