Crude oil prices rise as OPEC meets

NEW YORK, Sept. 9 (UPI) -- 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 49 cents to $71.74 per barrel. Heating oil prices rose 0.0545 cents to $1.835 per gallon. Reformulated gasoline prices slid 0.0035 cents to $1.829 per gallon. Natural gas prices rose 0.023 cents to $2.852 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.