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LUANDA: The OPEC oil producers' cartel warned of lingering weakness in the world economy and held its emergency crude output quotas unchanged at its meeting on Tuesday.
"The economic recovery has gathered pace," said the group's president, Angolan Oil Minister Jose Botelho de Vasconcelos. "However, doubts remain about the dynamics of the recovery," he added.
"The fragility remains in the market and we should not forget the detrimental volatility we experienced last year."
Tuesday's meeting capped a year of recovery for oil prices, which have more than doubled since quotas were cut a year ago to stabilise the market during the economic crisis that crippled demand for petroleum products.
OPEC held the quotas unchanged on Tuesday, Algeria's oil minister Chakib Khelil told reporters after the meeting. Ministers had said they were happy with current prices, hovering around 75 dollars a barrel.
Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi, representing the cartel's most influential member, said crude price levels were "perfect" and that the 12 member grouping had to focus on the market prospects for next year.
"Everybody is happy" with current price, he told reporters. "We're happy with it ... because the investor is happy."
Vasconcelos told ministers that "the economic recovery has gathered pace," with accelerating growth in emerging markets, particularly in Asia.
But he warned of "continued uncertainty in the financial sector and worries regarding growth momentum on the back of still-rising unemployment and fears that stimulus measures may come to an end too soon".
Observers had said ministers at the meeting would have one eye on Iraq's recovering oil industry and its ambitious plans to ramp up its production to levels that could rival Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil producer.
But Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani played down the prospect of a surge from Iraq's oilfields, saying the question of quotas for Iraq was unlikely to be tackled for up to three years.
Iraq is currently exempt from the cartel's system of quotas, which aim to limit production by members in order to stabilise prices.
OPEC members called for higher compliance with the quotas, with Vasconcelos saying even non-OPEC countries should play their part to "balance the market".
He did not name any other countries. Analysts have suggested that Russia – the world's biggest oil producer outside of OPEC – has profited from not being bound by the cartel's production limits.
"It is very hard on our member countries when they make sacrifices to cut back on output for the common good, only to find that other countries are stepping in to fill the gap," Vacsconcelos said.
Tuesday's meeting was the first OPEC meeting hosted by Angola. The country joined OPEC in 2007 and has overtaken Nigeria as Africa's biggest crude producer, according to the International Energy Agency, but it still suffers from three decades of civil war that ended seven years ago.
Khelil said that the 12-member group will next meet on March 17, when the presidency will have been taken over by Ecuador.
Oil prices rose slightly on Tuesday as the OPEC members convened. New York's main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in February, gained five cents to 73.77 dollars a barrel.
Brent North Sea crude for February gained 14 cents to 73.13 dollars.
- AFP/so
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