OPEC Says ‘Satisfied’ With Current Crude Oil Price (Update1)

July 3 (Bloomberg) -- OPEC is “satisfied” with the current oil price, OPEC President Jose Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos said today in Beijing.

The current price is “good for all of us, the consumers and the producers,” de Vasconcelos said. The world economy has recovered and “this price is a balanced price for us,” he told reporters at the Global Think Tank Summit.

Oil has risen 50 percent this year, reaching a seven-month high of $73.23 on June 11, on speculation fuel demand will rebound. OPEC is unlikely to change production quotas in September providing market conditions are similar to today with oil prices close to $70 a barrel, Kamel Al-Harami, an independent oil analyst based in Kuwait, said today.

OPEC is producing about 25 million barrels of oil a day and the organization is contributing to the oil market balance, de Vasconcelos said. OPEC doesn’t have a price target, he said, when asked if $80 a barrel is the group’s oil-price goal.

An oil price of $60 is “normal,” de Vasconcelos said earlier today, according to a translation of his comments on the conference’s Web site.

Crude oil in New York was trading at $66.59 a barrel at 5:48 p.m. in Singapore.

Oil reached a record $147.27 a barrel in July and dropped to about $33 in December. The market is “very fragile and tiny unrest could result in big shocks on the oil price,” de Vasconcelos said.