OPEC to Keep Output ‘As Is,’ Kuwait Oil Minister Says

Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will leave its crude production target “as is” at a December meeting and will ask members for better adherence to quotas, Kuwait’s oil minister said.

“We will ask for more compliance, that’s all,” Sheikh Ahmed Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah said in Kuwait City today. The group’s average compliance with its goal of cutting output should be more than 65 percent, he said.

Oil has climbed by 77 percent this year, trading above $80 last week, on speculation the pace of the global economic recovery is accelerating. The rebound in prices, which had dropped as low as $32.40 a barrel in December, came after OPEC members agreed to cut production late last year.

Crude prices between $75 and $80 a barrel are “good” and “comfortable,” he said. The prices next year will depend on whether an improvement in the economy continues, he said.

“There is ample supply in terms of gasoline, in terms of crude oil,” Al-Sabah said. Oil demand is rising, he said.

OPEC president, the Angolan Oil Minister Jose Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos, yesterday said average compliance at 65 percent was “good.” Compliance slipped to about 60 percent in October, from 62 percent in September, according to OPEC’s own monthly report, published Nov. 11.

“Now its 60 percent, we want to see it more than 65” Al- Sabah said.

OPEC’s 12 members are Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

The 11 members bound by supply quotas pumped 26.523 million barrels a day last month, compared with a formal limit of 24.845 million a day, according to OPEC’s latest monthly report, which uses data from secondary sources including analysts and news agencies. Iraq is exempt from quotas.

OPEC members are scheduled to meet on Dec. 22 in Luanda, Angola, to review production quotas that the group left unchanged at three gatherings in 2009. OPEC last agreed to increase supply targets in September 2007.