OPEC met today ready to keep severe oil output limits in place for another three months, raising fears that strengthening crude prices might shoot toward $30 a barrel later this year.
Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries ministers entering the meeting said they would leave output unchanged at 21.7 million barrels a day for the third quarter, keeping some six million barrels daily of capacity in mothballs.
They said they will wait until a mid-September gathering to consider whether more oil is needed to prevent rising demand sending crude prices spiralling higher.
"What they have in front of them now is a wall of new demand and they may well have to increase production before the September meeting, by calling a snap meeting, or the price could well go above $30 a barrel," said Mr Roger Diwan of Washington consultancy Petroleum Finance Corp.
"With OPEC not increasing output and demand rising both seasonally and to meet economic recovery oil prices should continue to strengthen, moving high enough to signal the need for more OPEC oil," said Mr Gary Ross, chief executive of New York's PIRA Energy.
Those forecasts will ring alarm bells among industrialised consumer nations hoping a sluggish global economic recovery not be hampered by rising energy costs.
Oil prices, up $5 since January, already match OPEC's central $25 a barrel target. London Brent blend futures in early Wednesday trade eased six cents to $25.14 a barrel and US crude slipped seven cents to $26.25 a barrel.