OPEC's compliance with oil output cuts is ``very good,'' making it unlikely that the exporters group will reduce production further at its meeting in Vienna this week, the oil ministers of Qatar and U.A.E. said.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries promised to cut supply at its last two meetings in October and December by a combined 1.7 million barrels a day, to compensate for a post-winter decline in heating oil demand and keep crude in New York near $60 a barrel.
``There's no need to do anything if prices remain as they are,'' Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah told reporters today in Dubai. The United Arab Emirates Oil Minister Mohamed al-Hamli told reporters in Dubai that compliance is ``very good. It's improving all the time.''
Al-Attiyah and al-Hamli, who is currently the OPEC president, will join 10 other oil ministers representing OPEC member states on Thursday in Vienna to discuss whether another reduction in output will be required to maintain prices in the second quarter when demand is weak.
Crude oil has been trading above $60 a barrel in New York since Feb. 21. Prices fell to $49.90 on Jan. 18 as warmer-than- expected weather spread across the U.S. and fuel inventories surged. Crude traded at $59.89 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 11.27 a.m. Dubai time.
The Qatari minister said Iran's standoff with the U.S. over its nuclear program was a ``growing concern'' for the oil market.
President George W. Bush's administration is reinforcing the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf area to ward off Iran, the region's largest military power, from attacking U.S. Sunni Muslim allies. The move comes amid an upsurge of sectarian violence in Iraq and a standoff with Iran over its uranium enrichment program, which the United Nations says must stop.
source:www.bloomberg.com
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