LONDON - World oil prices rose Monday on concerns that the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) may decide against hiking production further to help cool red hot prices, dealers said.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in June, gained 26 cents to 55.65 dollars per barrel in electronic deals.
In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in June won 52 cents to 55.49 dollars per barrel.
Traders were unsure whether an OPEC proposal to raise production levels beyond the current 28 million barrels per day (bpd) authorisation would materialise, said Dave Ernsberger, Asia oil director at energy information provider Platts in Singapore.
"People are nervous about OPEC, or rather, OPEC's ability or desire to follow through on some of the promises the market has been looking forward to," he added.
OPEC appeared to have no intention of increasing crude oil output to levels that would drive prices under 50 dollars a barrel, the Centre for Global Energy Studies (CGES) meanwhile said in its monthly report published Monday.
"There is no sign of any concerted action designed to bring prices down below 50 dollars a barrel and keep them there," the London-based group said.
"There is an evident reluctance on the part of OPEC's only member with the power to influence the market -- Saudi Arabia -- to boost output beyond the volumes nominated by customers," it added.
At its last meeting on March 16 in the Iranian city of Isfahan, the oil cartel raised its production ceiling by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 27.5 million bpd and said a similar increase would be considered if high prices continued.
Oil prices broke historic records on April 4, reaching 58.28 dollars a barrel in New York and 57.65 dollars in London, amid concerns that strong global demand could outpace supply.
Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali al-Nuaimi said last Thursday that his kingdom was "not responsible for the price of oil in the market".
Elsewhere, prices were under pressure on continued worries over a possible gasoline supply crunch ahead of the start of the driving season in the United States next month, when many Americans hit the roads for their summer vacations.
But slowing economic growth in both the United States and China would keep the crude futures below record price levels set earlier in the month, analysts said.
"Gasoline is the only real driver in the market, with talk of a slowdown in economic growth in the US and China and increasing supplies of crude pressuring the market and likely to prevent it from testing the 60-dollar level," analysts at the Sucden brokerage firm said.
04/25/2005 16:49 GMT