The cartel said it would seek to curb high crude stock levels at its meeting on Tuesday and played down the prospect of a surge from Iraq's recovering oilfields.

"No change," Naimi told reporters in Luanda, where the ministers of the

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries were to meet Tuesday, referring to the emergency quotas brought in a year ago to stabilise oil prices.

"The price is excellent," he said. "We will look at the market, that is all."

The cartel's secretary general Abdullah El-Badri said the powerful members of the 12-member grouping must tackle the effects of high crude stockpiles, which observers say could weaken the market when demand falls in the spring.

Observers had said ministers at Tuesday's meeting would have one eye on Iraq's recovering oil industry and its ambitious plans to ramp up its production to levels that could rival OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia.

But Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani told reporters he did not expect to tackle the question of production allowances for Iraq, while stressing its special situation as a country recovering from war.

"I don't expect any discussion on setting quotas or even discussing till we reach the point when there is a significant increase of Iraqi production," likely in two or three years, he said.

Iraq is currently exempt from the cartel's system of quotas, which seek to limit production by members in order to stabilise prices.

Badri also said a discussion of quotas for Iraq was unlikely to be on Tuesday's agenda.

"It will come, but not now," he said. "One day... we will discuss it and surely we will accommodate them."

Tuesday's meeting is the first hosted by Angola, which joined OPEC in 2007 and has overtaken Nigeria as Africa's biggest crude producer, according to the International Energy Agency, but still suffers from the legacy of three decades of civil war.

Angola boosted its international profile when it joined the exclusive 12-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in 2007, but millions of Angolans still live in poverty and hunger with little access to clean water.

Tuesday's meeting caps a year of recovery for oil prices, which have more than doubled since the cartel set strict quota cuts in the depths of the economic crisis a year ago.

"There is a consensus that there is no change" in view for production quotas, Badri said, and raising production levels next year is "not on our radar at this time."

"But if you look at fundamentals, especially inventory... the stocks, they are a bit high," Badri said. "So we have to do something about this."

Compliance with the cuts introduced in January has slipped but observers say that ministers have few real means to enforce it.

"I will ask the ministers to comply more" with the quotas introduced in January, Badri said, adding that he was "not happy" with the current level of 60 percent compliance.

Oil prices rose on Monday ahead of the meeting. New York's main futures contract climbed 58 cents to 73.94 dollars a barrel. In London, Brent North Sea crude advanced 40 cents to 74.15 dollars.

"The market is still volatile," said Shukri Ghanem, the head of Libyan's oil company who holds the rank of minister. In 2010, he added, "we hope that it will improve."