OPEC Expected To Stand Firm Over Oil Supply

OPEC is expected to resist consumer calls for more oil in its meeting in Vienna on Friday, say analysts.

With concern growing over a looming US recession, President Bush has urged Saudi Arabia to encourage OPEC to raise supplies to help ease high prices.

But an analyst at French investment bank Société Générale speaking to Reuters believes OPEC is "going to roll over the formal quotas".

Another analyst told the news agency that OPEC is likely "to sit on the fence".

Saudi Arabia has announced it will raise output when the market justifies it, and has also refused to signal what the country's ministers will do at the meeting on 1 February in Vienna.

Iraq's Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani told delegates at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week that there is no oil shortage in the market at present.

By staff writer