The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries or OPEC has announced that the world's leading oil producers will not reduce their production goals in light of the ongoing financial crisis.

Oil ministers from the 12 OPEC countries meeting in the Austrian capital Vienna have decided to maintain the current output level and boost the prices by strengthening the implementation of existing production quotas.

OPEC spokesman Omar Ibrahim said the cartel would wait and see how previously announced production cuts play out.

"At the same time the conference noted that OPEC's forecast is expected to grow by 0.4 million barrels a day in 2009 to 50.7 million barrels per day resulting in a total OPEC oil production during 2009 of 29.1 million barrels per day - a reduction of 1.8 million barrels per day over 2008."

According to OPEC figures, OPEC's 12 members have only delivered about 80 per cent of the 4.2 million barrels per day in cuts that have been agreed since September last year.

OPEC leaders said they doubted that they would be able to get the price of oil back into a range of between 60 to 70 dollars a barrel by the end of 2009.

Another OPEC meeting will be held on May 28 to assess whether further cuts in production will be necessary.