No OPEC Shifts on Production or Pricing Seen

OPEC ministers began gathering Thursday to review oil market conditions and decide whether to revise the group’s price and production policies.

Ministers from Libya, Venezuela, Ecuador and Kuwait were among the early arrivals for today’s meeting of a special panel of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

In advance of the talks, analysts predicted that the ministers of the 13 oil-producing nations would not revise the price and supply guidelines set late last year.

Ecuador’s oil minister, Diego Tamariz, said: “We will analyze the situation of the market and on that basis decide what to do in the second quarter of the year.”

He said the officials would study projections for demand and supply of OPEC crude oil in the April-June period before adjusting the production ceiling. Whether they change it or not, he said, “all depends on the outcome of the analysis.”

Last November, the ministers set a production limit of about 22 million barrels of crude a day for the first six months of the year. It had been fixed at 20.5 million barrels in the last quarter of 1989.

But several OPEC countries, led by Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, are together pumping at least a million barrels a day above the cap, according to analysts.

Despite surging production, prices have remained above the cartel’s target of $18 a barrel due to strong worldwide demand and declining production by the United States and other non-OPEC producers.