QUITO, Ecuador – OPEC ministers decided Saturday to keep oil output at current levels, giving ample inventories of sustained global economic uncertainty and a price of just $ 90 per barrel.
12-member of the cartel said after an unusually short meeting that it based its decision on the projections show the demand for crude oil would grow more slowly than in the year 2011.
The statement also cited "challenging the risks to the weak global economic recovery," including "fear of a second crisis in the banking sector in Europe."
The world's major industrial countries continue to face "lower industrial production," lagging behind private consumption as well as continuing high unemployment, to Ministers.
"The market is to balance and is stable," oil minister Ali Naimi in Saudi Arabia, OPEC largest producer, says Reporters. -The economic fundamentals are sound. Suffering a cold, he quickly after closed-door meeting lasted less than two hours.
OPEC next scheduled collection is 2 June in Vienna, at home. Asked whether it could convene earlier if prices were to postpone, the Group's Secretary-General, the said Abdulla Salem El-Badri, this is always a possibility.
"OPEC is always ready to respond when there are important changes in the market," he says.
There was much discussion about whether oil would soon take up barrage psychological price $ 100 – or even climb closer to its historical peak of $ 147 2008 per barrel.
Venezuela's minister, Rafael Ramirez, said he believed such price was "right" is considering how much producers invest in removing oil from the ground up.
"No change" announcement was anticipated General and four cartel Ministers – from Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and Nigeria – not even made the journey, send lower level delegates to this Andean capital.
OPEC, which is responsible for 35 per cent of global oil production has not changed its output quotas since the end of 2008. Last month, said Naimi was the price from $ 70 to $ 90 per barrel tolerable for consumers. On Saturday, he high end to $ 80 when prompted.
The 50-year-old cartel has had a good year, with prices soar in the interval 80 mid $ and prizes 32 percent in 2009 to 750 billion dollars, according to the u.s. Energy Department estimates. OPEC does not release the profit figures.
Oil reached a two-year high of almost $ 91 on Tuesday – traders infer dimensions for 2011 demand and responded to a particularly severe onset of winter in Europe.
Paris-based International Energy Agency, or IEA, said Friday that stronger than currently expected consumption next year in North America and Asia's emerging economies, led by China could force the OPEC to increase the supply "prices continues its inexorable rise."
Issue its demand forecast, saying it is foreseen an increase in THE IEA demand next year to 88.8 million barrels per day, 260000 daily FAT more than previously forecast.
OPEC market monthly report released Friday, forecast a boost in demand for 1.2 million barrels per day 2011 year levels to an average of 87.1 million.
While Ministers expect demand for crude oil will continue to grow, "at this moment, demand is not good," said Iran's oil minister, Masoud Mir-Kazem, Reporters.
-If the demand does not turn out to be stronger than expected, there is still a safety cushion out there and they can come back later and increase production, says analyst David Kirsch of PFC energy in Washington, the Associated Press. "Or likely, what happens is that the individual members cheat."
EL-Badri said that currently about 60%.
Oil supplies in major industrial countries and China are currently well above normal and OPEC forecasts a demand boom in North America and China in the monthly market report was published on Friday, but consider Western Europe festering debt crisis will dampen consumption there.
EL-Badri said oil stocks was seven days above the average of five years. -There is enough oil in the market, "he added. "On OPEC has six or seven million barrels per day overcapacity."
OPEC average 29.1 million barrels of production last month, a drop of 70 000 barrels from October, Platts, which studies the industry officials and analysts.
OPEC last modified output at the end of 2008 when the ceiling of a record series of cuts to increase prices had plummeted with the global economic collapse.
Some analysts believe conditions now is conspiring against much more upward pressure on prices as effects wear from the US Central Bank ECB decision to issue or buy up to $ 2.3 trillion in u.s. Treasury bonds.
Post theme footer – essentially money – made U.S. exports cheaper abroad and increased the price of oil. It also encouraged the Chinese to buy and store more oil.
Many analysts believe 100 dollars per barrel oil is inevitable in 2011 if it could be months before it gets there.
"All worked up about 100 dollars per barrel," said Barbara Shook, a Houston-based analyst with energy intelligence group. It is a psychological speech. A hundred dollar oil means that you have received $ 3 gasoline on each market in the United States
"And there is another tipping point. It can drop consumption, reduction in discretionary driving, things, "she added.
Ecuador, which entered THE OPEC 2007 after 15-year absence, holds the rotating Presidency of the year. Iran will take over for 2011.
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