Crude oil prices lift as OPEC meets

Crude oil prices rose Wednesday on reports that OPEC oil ministers meeting in Vienna would keep current production levels unchanged.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries last changed production quotas in September, cutting output by 4.2 million barrels a day to support price increases.

Recently, IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates said demand for oil would rise in 2010 for the first time since 2007, the Financial Times reported.

In Saudi Arabia, however, the Al-Hayat newspaper said Ali Al-Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, described oil prices as satisfactory.

On Wednesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude price rose 75 cents to $71.85 per barrel. Heating oil prices rose 0.014 cents to $1.7965 per gallon. Reformulated gasoline prices rose 0.137 cents to $1.8426 per gallon. Natural gas prices rose 0.95 cents to $2.902 per million British thermal units.

At the pump, the national average price for unleaded gasoline was $2.573 per gallon Wednesday, down from Tuesday’s $2.578, AAA said.