Vienna: Saudi Arabia -- the world's biggest producer of crude -- said that the current supply and demand situation for oil was "sound," ahead of an OPEC production meeting.

Arriving in the Austrian capital ahead of Friday's meeting at which the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries was expected to leave output quotas unchanged, Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi told reporters, "The fundamentals are sound."

Nuaimi spoke shortly after the oil ministers of Libya and Algeria hinted there would be no change to OPEC's official daily output of 29.67 million barrels of oil at the upcoming get-together.

US President George Bush recently urged OPEC to increase output to help cool prices, which surged to a record high above 100 dollars a barrel at the start of January.

Source : PTI