Report: OPEC can check prices if it wants

VIENNA, June 23 (UPI) -- Members of the OPEC oil cartel should review production quotas in an effort to control soaring crude prices on the world market, analysts say.

A report by the London-based Center for Global Energy Studies, a think tank founded by Ahmed Zaki Yamani, a former Saudi oil minister, says members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries have the capacity to moderate oil prices if they so choose.

Oil prices soared over $147 per barrel of crude in 2008 before plunging below $40 as the global economic recession took hold. Since then, however, prices have nearly doubled to around $70 per barrel as OPEC holds to production quotas reached in 2008 to control prices.

OPEC earlier this year agreed to hold to a production ceiling of slightly more than 24.5 million barrels per day, but a review by the Platts news service finds production has increased.

The sixth OPEC meeting with the European Union kicked off Tuesday in Vienna to examine ways for further constructive exchanges to control oil prices.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia cut oil production by more than 300,000 barrels per day for April in an effort to control renewed volatility in the energy market.

The CGES report forecasts oil prices at $80 per barrel in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2009.