RIYADH, Sept 8: OPEC Secretary General Rilwanu Lukman has predicted the cartel’s total revenue will rise by 27.8 per cent to 131.6 billion dollars this year, the Al-Riyadh daily said today, reports AFP.

Total revenues in the first seven months of the year were some 65 billion dollars, while expected revenue in the last five months of 1999 is about 66.bil-lion dollars, he added.

- The OPEC chief said the cartel’s 1998 revenues were 103 billion dollars.

Last month the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimated that the Organisation of Petrqleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) 1998 revenue was 99.9 billion dollars and would rise to 123.6 billion dollars.

Meanwhile. Lukman predicted revenues in Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, would rise to 40.3 bil-

lion dollars, with 20.1 billion dollars in the first seven months and 20.2 billion dollars in the last five months.

The EIA predicted that Saadi oil revenues would rise from 29.7 billion dollars in 1998 to 34.6 billion dollars this year, an increase of 17 per cent.

On Wednesday in Indonesia. Lukman said that although world oil prices had made a re-, markable recovery since March they remained highly sensitive.

"OPEC is aware that the oil market's present equilibrium is fragile and therefore we continue to exercise caution." Lukman told an oil and gas conference in the Indonesian resort island of Nusa Dua.

'The next ministerial conference. to be held in Vienna later this month, will carefully examine the present situation." Lukman said. OPEC is to hold a ministerial meeting on September 22.