(dpa) - Top OPEC officials indicated Wednesday that the oil cartel would not move to boost production at their March meeting later in the day in Vienna.
Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said OPEC remained committed to supply the market in case of supply shortage, but current oil prices were not connected to supply bottlenecks.
There was a disconnection between market fundamentals and the direction were the markets were going, al-Sharistani said as ministers of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries were preparing to meet.
The market was balanced, OPEC President Chekib Khalil of Algeria said ahead of the meeting.
"There is no problem with supply and demand," he said.
"The problem is elsewhere...in the US economy, decision by the Federal Reserve Banks to lower interest rates, and the weakness of the dollar," he said.
The 13 cartel members were expected to leave oil output levels unchanged ignoring both western calls to open the pumps as well as demands by some cartel members to cut production.
Oil prices were influenced by an unusual number of factors, chiefly among them the weakness of the US-dollar, OPEC members said, stressing that the market was well supplied.
Oil prices were additionally buoyed by geopolitical factors. The political situation regarding Iran, highlighted by Monday's UN Security Council sanctions resolution, as well as the conflict between OPEC member Venezuela and neighbouring Colombia were additional factors pushing oil prices upwards, analysts said.
Pressure on OPEC crude prices eased slightly ahead of the meeting, dropping almost a dollars from its all-time-high of 97.27 dollars on Monday to 96.97 dollars on Tuesday.
OPEC which pumps about 40 per cent of the world's crude, had hinted at cutting production ahead of the meeting, fearing a decrease in demand due to a slump in the US economy and the traditional economic slowdown in the second quarter.
OPEC currently produces 29.79 million barrels per day, not including Iraq. Total OPEC crude production averaged 32.0 million barrels daily in January, the cartel said.
OPEC members are reaping the benefits of the skyrocketing prices, maintaining that the market is well-supplied.
Over the past few weeks, the United States and Japan called on OPEC to increase production fearing that rising oil prices to negatively affect the already sluggish economy.
Most cartel members however support doing nothing at this meeting and leave output quotas unchanged for the time being.