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By Bloomberg

Oil traded near the lowest price in almost a week before the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries meets Friday in Vienna to discuss its production quota.

Futures were little changed in London after falling 2.6 percent on Wednesday. A fifth week of declines in U.S. crude inventories has been overshadowed by Iraq signaling it will increase exports this month and Iran urging the group to make room for more production if global sanctions recede. OPEC is forecast to keep its output target unchanged, according to all but one of 34 analysts and traders in a Bloomberg survey last month.

OPEC members have been pumping above their quota for a year, swelling a global glut and hampering Brent’s recovery from a six-year low. Saudi Arabia has stood by its strategy of favoring market share over supporting prices after leading a group decision in November not to lower the collective target.

“The Saudis have played a good game,” Jonathan Barratt, the chief investment officer at Ayers Alliance Securities in Sydney, said by phone. “Prices are up from the lows, there’s no need for OPEC to change. If the market continues to focus on the supply-side, it will continue to consolidate, or slip lower.”

Brent for July settlement was at $63.70 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange, down 10 cents, at 12:37 p.m. Singapore time. The contract decreased $1.69 to $63.80 on Wednesday, the lowest close since May 28. The European benchmark crude was at a premium of $4.10 to West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. marker grade.

OPEC Output

WTI for July delivery was 6 cents lower at $59.58 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It fell $1.62 to $59.64 on Wednesday. The volume of all futures traded was about 63 percent below the 100-day average.

OPEC, which supplies about 40 percent of the world’s crude, pumped 31.58 million barrels a day in May, exceeding its quota of 30 million barrels for a 12th consecutive month, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The market is currently oversupplied by as much as 2.5 million barrels a day, Venezuela’s Energy Minister Asdrubal Chavez said in Vienna.

Iraq, the second biggest producer in OPEC, will boost shipments by about 100,000 barrels a day this month, Oil Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said Wednesday. The nation is seeing good demand for a new grade of heavy crude and is currently selling 800,000 barrels a day, he said.

Iran, which in three weeks faces a deadline for a deal on its nuclear program, can return output to pre-sanctions levels in a short time and wants the 12-member group to make room for increased supply, said Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh.

U.S. Supplies

In the U.S., stockpiles declined by 1.9 million barrels in the week through May 29, according to a report from the Energy Information Administration Wednesday. Supplies were projected to drop by 2.5 million barrels, according to a Bloomberg survey.

Production accelerated by 20,000 barrels a day to 9.59 million barrels a day, rising for a second week, the EIA said. That’s the highest level since January 1983, according to weekly data from the Energy Department’s statistical arm.

The world’s largest oil consumer sent a record volume of crude abroad in April with more cargoes bound for Asia and Europe and exports to Canada hitting an all-time high, Census Bureau data showed. Shipments rose 41 percent to average 586,379 barrels a day, the most in U.S. government data going back to 1920. The majority went to Canada.