Indonesia will support the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) if the oil cartel decides to raise its output quota by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 28 million bpd, a top executive has said.

Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro was quoted Tuesday by The Jakarta Post as saying OPEC should maintain its current quota and, if possible, even produce more oil to ease the soaring global oil prices and meet higher demand in the fourth quarter of the year.

"There have been talks about an increase in the quota by 500, 000 bpd," Purnomo said.

"I think (the raise) is a good move."

Ministers from 11 member countries of OPEC will meet at the organization's headquarters in Vienna on Wednesday to discuss their production strategy for the rest of the year.

The group's official production target was boosted from 27 million bpd to 27.5 million bpd in April to help slash the soaring oil prices.

Purnomo said, however, that this month's possible quota increase would not alter the state budget.

"We have already set oil prices at 45 US dollars a barrel in the revised state budget," he said.

Analysts believe that the planned increase in the quota will not have a significant impact on the price of crude oil, which has fluctuated around 50 dollars for the past five months, as actual production from OPEC member countries is already higher than the quota.

According to data from Indonesia's chapter of OPEC, the organization produced 30.4 million bpd in April -- including 2 million bpd output from Iraq, whose production has not been calculated into OPEC's quota since the Gulf War.

Source: Xinhua