Agence France-Presse . Vienna

OPEC ministers hinted in Vienna Wednesday that they were unlikely to bow to US pressure for a hike in oil output to further cool crude prices that recently surged to record highs above 100 dollars.

Oil kingpin Saudi Arabia voiced satisfaction at the present levels of crude supply and demand, while other key members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries said they did not believe there was a need to change output.

The 13-member OPEC, which pumps about 40 per cent of world oil, was to hold its latest production meeting in the Austrian capital on Friday.

‘The fundamentals are sound,’ Saudi oil minister Ali al-Nuaimi told reporters on arrival in Vienna, as he expressed his views about the current demand and supply situation for crude oil.

Nuaimi spoke shortly after the oil ministers of influential OPEC members Algeria and Libya said they did not believe there was a need to change the group’s official daily output of 29.67 million barrels at the upcoming get-together.

‘I don’t think at this moment that we should take any action,’ Libya’s oil chief Shukri Ghanem told reporters in Vienna on Wednesday. ‘I think we have to take a look at the market and then decide,’ he added.

Algeria’s energy minister Chakib Khelil said oil stocks were at ‘a good level’ and demand was going to drop in the second quarter. ‘I am not sure there is a need to increase’ output, he added.

US president George W Bush recently urged OPEC to increase output to help cool prices, which hit record highs above 100 dollars a barrel at the start of January.

On Wednesday New York crude closed above 92 dollars — still almost double the level of a year ago. Asked if he was concerned that prices had slipped from a high of 100.09 dollars reached in New York on January 4, Ghanem said: ‘We are not worried so far but we might be a little concerned.’

Analysts said OPEC was likely to keep output on hold Friday. ‘We maintain our view for no change in the group’s crude supply, as suggested in the latest comments from the group’s members, despite persistent calls from major consuming nations’ for a hike, said Sucden analyst Andrey Kryuchenkov in London.

Experts add that OPEC is concerned that oil demand and prices may fall sharply should there be a US recession.

The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday trimmed its key interest rate by a half-point to 3.0 per cent — its second cut in eight days to help the world’s biggest economy that some say is on the brink of recession.

The action came a week after an emergency cut of 0.75 percentage points. OPEC’s meeting on Friday is an ‘extraordinary’ get-together that was scheduled at its last official gathering on December 5 in Abu Dhabi.

There, OPEC decided against increasing production, insisting the market was well supplied and that high prices were caused by speculative activity, not a reaction to the actual demand and supply situation.

In its monthly report published last week, the influential Centre for Global Energy Studies accused OPEC of deliberately restricting oil supply early last year and of keeping a tight grip on output levels in mid-2007.

OPEC has maintained its estimate for 2008 growth in world oil demand, arguing that while high prices would brake demand in major industrialised countries, the market would continue to hold up in emerging powers such as China and India.

OPEC comprises Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. Iraq is the only member without an output quota owing to unrest in the country, while analysts say OPEC is in fact producing above its official ceiling by about 180,000 barrels of oil each day.

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