The average price of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' basket of seven crudes jumped to 39.13 US dollars per barrel in the five trading days last week, 1.73 dollars higher than a week earlier, the Vienna-based OPEC Secretariat said Monday.

On Friday, OPEC's average oil price reached a new record high of 39.67 dollars a barrel, it said.

OPEC created the basket in 1982 as a measure to monitor market oil supply.

International oil prices soared last week due to uncertainty over the future of Russia's biggest oil producer Yukos, which said it may be forced to stop production.

OPEC President Purnomo Yusgiantoro, who is also Indonesia's energy minister, said Monday in Jakarta the organization may raise its production quotas to match current output levels in a measure to prevent further overheating in the oil market.

OPEC ministers are scheduled to meet in Vienna on September 15 to review output policy, but only Saudi Arabia, the world's top exporter, has any significant spare capacity to increase supply.

Analysts warned that the soaring price could deal a severe blow to world economic growth, saying that oil at 35 dollars a barrel, the average for the past year, would take half a percentage point off global growth.

They said countries heavily reliant on oil imports were most at risk.

Source: Xinhua