VIENNA, June 5 : OPEC ministers agreed on Tuesday to keep oil output steady for the next three months, striking a compromise designed to support prices until demand for crude picks up later this year, reports Reuter.

All 13 ministers agreed to extend the Group’s 22.3 million barrel per day (BPD) second-quarter production ceiling into the third quarter. Iranian Oil Minister Gholamreza Aqazadeh told reporters.

The decision represents a trade-off between members

demanding output cuts and others prepared to pump more oil.

Aqazadeh. who spoke to reporters as he returned to a closed meeting of Ministers, did not provide any more details.

Other ministers had not emerged from the session.

Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter and OPEC's dominant power, had rejected any production cut to boost prices, now more than three dollars below OPEC's target of 21 dollars a barrel.

Iran, the Group's second largest producer, had ruled out boosting production, concerned such a step could push prices even lower.

Ministers will meet again in September to discuss fourthquarter output and to try to orchestrate an smooth resumption of Iraqi and Kuwaiti production knocked off world markets by the Gulf crisis.