Oil exporters agree to keep output at current high level

TOP oil exporter Saudi Arabia and fellow OPEC producers signalled on Saturday that they would keep oil output near its current 25-year high for now, satisfied the policy is easing pressure on consumer economies.

But a $12 drop in the price since mid-July and forecasts that demand for OPEC oil will decline in 2007 are beginning to worry some in the group, which pumps a third of the world’s oil.

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which met in Vienna over the weekend, has pumped steadily for over a year to fill consumers’ oil tanks and guard against supply shocks.