Oil near $ 110 after OPEC deal

JEDDAH: OPEC ministers held their oil production ceiling unchanged yesterday while voting to keep secretary-general Abdullah El-Badri in his post for another year, Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Ali Al-Naimi said after a meeting in Vienna.
“We will hold” output, which currently stands at 30 million barrels per day, Al-Naimi told reporters after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries wrapped up its ministerial meeting.
Crude oil rose to around $ 110 a barrel yesterday. Brent crude futures were up $ 2.02 to $ 110.03 a barrel by 1450 GMT, rebounding from last week’s dip. US crude was up $ 1.19 to $ 86.98 a barrel.
The OPEC ministers also voted to keep Libyan Abdullah Al-Badri on for one more year, having apparently failed to agree on a replacement for the already two-term secretary-general.
Three candidates were in the running for his job: Majed Al-Moneef, a former Saudi governor to OPEC, ex-Iranian oil minister Gholam Hossein Nozari and former Iraq oil minister Thamir Ghadhban.
“We extended one year for the secretary general,” Al-Naimi told journalists. “We have an experienced secretary general in position. Extending it one year is a very very very good decision,” he said.
OPEC was to hold its next meeting on May 31, the minister said.
UAE Oil Minister Mohammed bin Dhaen Al-Hamli earlier said that OPEC should make its oil more attractive to customers in response to the supply of shale from the US. Speaking at the start of the meeting he said US shale was a “big issue.”
His remarks came as the International Energy Agency said in a monthly report that spectacular growth in US production on the back of a boom in shale oil will be one of the top developments for the market in 2013.