U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling will meet with oil industry executives Wednesday amid a growing furor over rising fuel prices.
The prime minister's office said the meeting will take place at 1000 GMT in Scotland. It wouldn't give further details.
Tuesday, hundreds of trucks rolled into central London, jamming a major route into the capital to protest the rising price of fuel.
Meanwhile, political pressure is mounting on the government to reverse some of its tax plans.
As of Tuesday, 42 lawmakers, mainly from Brown's Labour party, had signed a motion calling for the government to rethink a vehicle excise duty that will charge a higher tax on the most polluting vehicles bought since 2001.
There are also calls for the government to reverse a planned 2 pence a liter increase in the duty due to take effect Oct. 1. The measure was postponed by six months in Darling's March 12 budget.
Tuesday, officials gave mixed signals on their fuel tax plans.
A treasury spokesman said the government understood the pressure high fuel prices were causing for business and families but didn't indicate any policy change.
In a radio interview Tuesday, U.K. Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform John Hutton gave a stronger hint of flexibility.
"I mean obviously the chancellor is listening to what people are saying about vehicle excise duty as he has done on a number of occasions recently about tax rises," he told the British Broadcasting Corp.
Darling has had to reverse course or amend plans on several tax measures recently.
Writing in the Guardian newspaper Wednesday, the prime minister sought to turn the focus back on the international oil market and the need for more supply from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Warning that the world faces "the third great oil shock," Brown said "instead of OPEC going its own way, there should be an enhanced dialogue between producers and consumers about the advance of nuclear, coal and renewables and about greater energy efficiency - as well as about future oil reserves."
Brown said oil producers "should reexamine whether the barriers that exist to strategic investments should be broken down."