OPEC Unlikely to Raise Oil Output in September, Qatar Says

June 14 (Bloomberg) -- OPEC, the supplier of 40 percent of the world’s oil, is unlikely to increase output when the group meets in Vienna in September, Qatar’s oil minister said.

“I don’t think so,” Abdullah bin-Hamad Al-Attiyah said today in an interview in Amsterdam when asked if the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would need to raise production. “I would like to see where the real growth is, when the economic crisis reaches bottom and will take off again” before making a decision on oil output, he said.

Crude oil has climbed 62 percent this year, after plunging more than $100 in five months at the end of 2008 as the global recession curbed demand for the fuel. Oil futures closed above $70 a barrel on June 9 for the first time since November as the dollar dropped against most of its major counterparts, spurring investors to purchase energy futures and other commodities.

OPEC will only consider raising output when the price climbs to $100 a barrel, Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmed al- Abdullah al-Sabah said last week. The group is scheduled to meet Sept. 9.

Crude oil for July delivery closed at $72.04 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on June 12. Oil is poised to reach $75 a barrel after rising above $73 on June 11, according to technical analysis by Newedge USA LLC.

Speculation

Speculation, lower inventories and an increase in demand are pushing the prices higher, Al-Attiyah said. He declined to comment on a year-end price target for crude.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. forecast a surge to $85 a barrel by the end of the year. Crude prices are likely to rise to between $70 and $75 a barrel by the end of 2009 because of expectations for an economic recovery and a weak dollar, OPEC Secretary General Abdalla el-Badri said on June 4.

OPEC implemented 75 percent of planned output cuts of 4.2 million barrels a day in May, compared with 77 percent in April, the Vienna-based organization said in its monthly oil report on June 12. The International Energy Agency said the producer group complied with 74 percent of the reductions.

Al-Attiyah is on a three-day visit to the Netherlands and will meet with executives of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, one of the biggest investors in Qatar, and members of the government.