Crude oil falls as OPEC expected to maintain output level

Crude oil fell in New York as Saudi Arabia's oil minister said supplies are sufficient to meet demand, signaling that OPEC may maintain production levels when it meets yesterday.

The oil market is "well-balanced" and inventories are "healthy," Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi said this yesterday in Vienna. Venezuela will support unchanged production, Energy and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said. Most analysts polled by Bloomberg expect the 13 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which supplies more than 40 percent of the world's oil, to keep quotas unchanged and output near record levels.

"At the moment they are very satisfied with what is happening," said Eugen Weinberg, a commodity analyst at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt. "The oil price is still above $100. From what we have heard they will come short of cutting production."