Vienna: Relaxed Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) ministers insisted on June 25 that they would leave oil production ceilings unchanged at a meeting in Vienna this week and would wait instead for concrete signs of a recovery in global demand.

Rebuffing consumer pressure to open the oil taps to bring down prices at the pump, the OPEC energy chiefs said there was no reason at least for the third quarter of the year.

"Everything's fitting into place. I'm very relaxed," said the cartel's kingpin Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi, speaking ahead of the formal meeting on June 26.

OPEC slashed production last year to haul prices out of a slump triggered by the global economic slowdown and the September 11 attacks in the United States, and says demand is still too fragile for it to raise output.

Oil prices have edged up slightly even as the energy chiefs gather, anticipating the 'no-change' decision by the cartel, which produces over 30 per cent of the world's crude.

Algerian Oil Minister Chakib Khelil told reporters on his arrival here that he expected ‘no change’ to production ceilings again confirmed expectations of a rollover of quotas.

On the eve of the gathering, a Saudi official, whose country is by far the biggest OPEC producer, said the meeting "will decide to renew its current production ceiling".

Some ministers are however expected to urge their counterparts to respect their production quotas more closely. Analysts say the producer group is pumping about one million barrels of oil a day above its combined ceiling.

Khelil said that "everybody's concerned about compliance" to quotas.

"So we are hoping we are going to have full compliance and we can maintain our prices at an appropriate level between $ 22 and $ 28 a barrel, referring to the OPEC's official target price band," he said.

But al-Nuaimi appeared unconcerned by analysts' estimates that OPEC members are producing up to 1.5 million barrels a day above their combined ceiling, equivalent to the size of their last output cut.

"I would take those with a pinch of salt," Nuaimi told a small group of reporters.

However, ministers are expected to reserve some soothing words for the market that they stand ready to pump more oil if demand recovers or Iraqi exports dry up as a result of changes to UN sanctions imposed on Baghdad. In London, Brent North Sea crude for August delivery traded for $ 25.12 a barrel in late trading on June 23, up 37 cents from its previous close.