OPEC decided to maintain the current quota of oil production, reports Bloomberg referring to the statement of representatives of countries that are members of the organization.

Currently, the quota for the extraction for 11 countries in the organization (Iraq is not subject to the quota) is set at 24.845 million barrels of oil per day, and most analysts did not expect any changes at the May meeting, reminded the “Interfax”.
As the Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi said, OPEC has maintained quotas in anticipation of recovery in demand for oil by the end of this year. Thus, the organization does not change the quota for the second meeting this year.

Meanwhile, the cost of oil since the last OPEC meeting in March has risen by 36%. Recently, crude oil has traded above $ 60 mark per barrel. Before the OPEC meeting the President and Minister of Petroleum of Angola, José Maria de Vasconcelos Botel said that OPEC member countries needed to complete the reduction of oil production in order to achieve full compliance with the quotas, because the cost of oil had not yet reached the desired level of 70-75 dollars per barrel.

Member countries of the Organization have decided to reduce oil production from 1 January 2009 to 4.2 million barrels per day (bpd) compared with the actual level of production in September, which amounted to 29.045 million bpd. However, the April production was 25.81 million bpd, an increase of approximately 225 thousand b/d compared to that of March. This was the first increase in nine months. Thus, the announced reduction of production conducted only at 77%.

OPEC, which accounts for about 40% of the world’s oil supply, is composed of 12 countries: Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Venezuela.