Crude oil fell, completing its first weekly decline since mid-November, on expectations OPEC will boost production to make up for a shortfall from Venezuela.
OPEC will probably will raise its output quota today by 1 million to 1.5 million barrels a day, analysts said. Prices have risen 16 percent since Dec. 2, when Venezuelan workers went on strike seeking the ouster of President Hugo Chavez. The country's daily output has since dropped by about 2.3 million barrels.
"OPEC, outside of Venezuela, is already increasing production," said Jay Saunders, an analyst at Deutsche Bank Securities in Edinburgh, Scotland. "OPEC should be worried about all of their increased production hitting the market at the same time Venezuelan oil comes back."
Crude oil for February delivery fell US$0.31, or 1 percent, to US$31.68 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices were down 4.2 percent this week, the first decline since the week ended Nov. 15.
In London, the February Brent crude-oil futures contract rose US$0.03 to US$29.67 a barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange.
The weekend meeting at OPEC's Vienna headquarters will be the group's second in a month. In December, OPEC raised quotas to 23 million barrels a day from 21.7 million. The group last month pumped 24.78 million barrels of crude oil a day, or about a third of world supply, according to Bloomberg estimates.
OPEC members, concerned that rising prices may spur development of competing oil fields, have agreed to consider increasing output when prices stay above their target range of US$22 to US$28 a barrel for 20 consecutive days, based on a benchmark index of seven types of crude oil.
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