OPEC ministers decide to keep output limits unchanged: Report

OPEC oil producers agreed on Thursday to keep oil supplies steady for the winter and move aggressively to shore up high world crude prices early next year, Reuters reported.

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to keep output limits unchanged at 24.5 million barrels a day and meet again on February 10 in Algiers, a delegate said.

Ministers, locked in a closed session to decide the group's next secretary-general, have still to confirm the deal.

The group that controls half the world's crude trade is expected to cut production in February as demand eases after the northern winter and to make room for the recovery in post-war Iraqi exports.

Thursday's deal saw oil prices reverse some of this week's sharp gains this week as traders expressed relief that OPEC had not opted for immediate curbs from January.

U.S. light crude fell by 37 cents to $30.73 a barrel.

"The message from OPEC is that it is still managing the oil market very well," said Oystein Berentsen, head of international crude trading at Norway's Statoil.

"Any downside move on price is likely to be limited. They can manage to support $30 U.S. crude if they want to."

Leading OPEC power Saudi Arabia says it is pursuing a higher oil price target to offset purchasing power lost to the decline of the U.S. dollar against other major currencies.

Saudi Arabia's Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said the dollar's slump justified current prices.

Other ministers have fallen in line with the effective raising of OPEC's dollar price target to $28 for an index of cartel crudes, after nearly four years aiming for $25.

There is no move yet for a change to the group's formal $22-$28 target band.

International oil sales are dollar-denominated so the dollar's fall means OPEC nations are paying more, for example, in euros and yen for European Union and Japanese goods and services.

Producers already appear to have a consensus on the need for tougher restraints at the February meeting.

Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahd al-Sabah said at least one million barrels daily, four percent, would need to be removed at that time.

Meanwhile, he said, OPEC should enforce better discipline with existing limits, which he estimated were being breached by up to a million barrels daily. (*)