Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali Naimi has said that he backs an increase in OPEC’s production ceiling but questioned whether demand justified adding actual oil to the market.

Oil prices hit record levels today, reaching $56.85 a barrel on continued scepticism about Opec’s ability to calm markets by increasing official output.

PETROL prices are set to increase in the run up to the summer despite a slight easing in crude prices yesterday on the world markets.

OPEC oil ministers today joined in supporting a cut in output toward production target levels early next year in a bid by the organisation’s 11 member states to stave off further falls in the world price while trying to avoid a new frenzy of buying.

Saudi Arabia can pump an extra 1.3 million barrels of oil a day if the market requires it, the kingdom’s Oil Minister Ali Naimi said today.

Saudi Arabia’s influential oil minister struggled to rein in a runaway market with assurances about the reliability of supplies as OPEC members gathered in Beirut to consider increasing crude production.

Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali Naimi arrived in Amsterdam for and emergency Opec meeting today and said the cartel needs to raise its output ceiling by more than two million barrels a day.

Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi urged OPEC to raise its production ceiling by 1.5 million barrels a day when it meets on June 3.

Gunmen assassinated an Iranian diplomat in Baghdad just as Iran, with tacit US approval, attempted to mediate with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr defying American forces in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf.

Saudi Arabia will keep delivering oil “whatever happens” during a war in Iraq, the country’s oil minister said today.

OPEC needs to compensate for a shortfall in oil exports from Venezuela but it shouldn’t change its output target of 23 million barrels a day, the group’s most influential oil minister said today.

WORLD oil prices have been climbing steadily raising concerns about its impact on the global economy in what is still an uncertain outlook for 2003.

Rejecting calls from the West to put more oil on the market and give consumers some relief from high prices, Opec ministers today agreed to leave output unchanged, the group’s Secretary-General said.

OPEC power Saudi Arabia was tight-lipped yesterday on cartel output strategy amid a chorus of opposition to any relaxation in tough output curbs.