SINGAPORE :World oil prices rose in Asian trade on Monday amid growing signs that Opec will announce production cuts at a special meeting in Vienna this week, dealers said.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for November delivery was 1.12 dollars higher at 72.97 dollars a barrel from its close of 71.85 dollars Friday in the United States.
Brent North Sea crude for December delivery gained 95 cents to 70.55 dollars a barrel.
Crude prices have halved in value from record highs of above 147 dollars struck in July, prompting calls from key Opec members that the oil cartel should cut its output targets to shore up prices.
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela was the latest to lend his support for an output cut by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), whose 12-member countries together pump about 40 percent of the world's oil.
"Our position for the past 10-plus years has been that we have to manage oil production," Chavez told AFP Sunday, ahead of the October 24 meeting.
"Now that the prices are coming down, we are going to take (to Opec) the proposal of cutting production," Chavez said during a visit to an oil pipeline project in Cumana in northeast Venezuela.
The cartel's special ministerial meeting in Vienna on the impact of the financial crisis on oil prices has been brought forward to October 24 instead of November 18.
"Pressure is building up within Opec to make output cuts when they meet this week," said Victor Shum, a Singapore-based analyst with international energy consultancy Purvin and Gertz.
"So the market right now has priced in some cuts," he said.
OPEC, led by the world's biggest oil exporter Saudi Arabia, has not officially indicated whether production levels would be altered at the meeting but its current chief Chakib Khelil said the cartel should order a "substantial" cut in oil output.
"There will be a reduction in production at the next extraordinary meeting of Opec, and it will have to be a substantial one to get the balance right between supply and demand," Khelil told reporters Saturday.
"If it has to be 1.5 million barrels per day, or two million barrels per day, that's what it will be," Khelil added, during a visit to the southern Algerian province of Tamanrasset.
Khelil, who is also Algeria's Energy Minister, said Opec wanted to see oil prices "remain stable" throughout the first half of 2009.
"We want a stable price per barrel -- neither too high, nor too low, between 70 and 90 dollars," Khelil said.
Iran -- Opec's second largest exporter -- also called Saturday for a significant cut amid prospects of reduced demand in the face of the global economic slowdown, the state broadcaster reported.
Opec's official production quota stands at 28.8 million barrels per day.
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