No Need To Boost OPEC's Output Next Year, Representatives Say

OPEC will probably maintain its oil production targets, resisting calls for more supply because of concerns demand may falter as American economic growth slows, said officials from six member-nations.

Representatives from members including Libya and Iran have said in the past 11 days there's no need to boost output from targets set last year. The group, which produces more than a third of the world's oil, meets tomorrow in Vienna.

"No, I don't think there should be an output increase," Libya's top oil official and the chairman of Libya's state-run National Oil Corp., Shokri Ghanem, told reporters when he arrived in Vienna late yesterday. "I don't think the market needs that for the time being."

Oil prices have risen 26% this year and touched a record $78.77 a barrel in New York on August 1 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries curbed exports to drain inventories.