The weekly average prices of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) declined slightly to 74.86 U.S. dollars per barrel last week, in a continual fluctuation within narrow range, the Vienna-based cartel said Monday.

In the five trading days of last week, OPEC oil prices fluctuated within the range of less than one U.S. dollar.

Because of the lack of clear sign for the world economic recovery, the supply-demand relationship at the international crude oil market had shown no significant change, which resulted in limited price fluctuations.

For the next period, there is no factors in sight for any significant fluctuations of the international oil prices.

However, along with the slow recovery of the world economy as well as the arrival of the peak oil in winter, the international oil prices may move upwards slowly.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has slightly increased the U.S. oil demand forecast on day 23 from 19.291 million barrels a day to 19.314 million barrels per day.

In addition, the U.S. stock market had also improved with economic stabilization, as weakness of the U.S. dollar would also lead to an increase of interest in commodity investment, including crude oil.

All the above factors would support the price of crude oil futures for the next period of time.

OPEC ministers will hold a regular meeting in Vienna next month to discuss and establish its future oil production quotas.

Some senior officials of OPEC members such as Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Ali and Venezuelan Energy and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez, recently expressed satisfaction with the current oil price and production, saying they would call for maintaining current production levels in the upcoming OPEC ministerial meeting.