NEW YORK, April 21: Oil prices pushed above $31 on Monday ahead of this week’s Opec meeting which is expected to tighten crude supplies as fuel demand dips to the lowest point in the year.

US light crude in New York rose 53 cents to $31.08 a barrel, its highest price in nearly three weeks. Trade in Brent crude on London’s International Petroleum Exchange was closed for the Easter holiday.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will meet in Vienna on Thursday for an emergency meeting called after oil dropped about 30 per cent in a month as Middle East oil flows escaped severe disruption from war in Iraq.

Oil prices rebounded late last week as Iran called on Opec, which controls over half of oil exports worldwide, to cut official production quotas, warning that the failure to rein in supply could trigger a price collapse.

Other Opec members have said tighter compliance to official output limits would probably be enough to avoid a supply glut.

Opec pumped more than 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) over its self-imposed 24.5 million bpd production ceiling in March as it raised output to counter the loss of Iraqi exports

Meanwhile, top Opec officials said on Monday they had not yet received a request from Iraq to send representatives to an emergency meeting of the oil producers’ cartel in Vienna this week.

“As of now we have no request from Iraq to be represented at the meeting,” Opec Secretary-General Alvaro Silva told Reuters. “We’re faced with a very irregular situation in Iraq and these matters will have to be decided by the ministers.”

A former Iraqi general who says he is deputy governor of Baghdad, Jawdat al-Obeidi, told Reuters on Sunday he would lead an Iraqi delegation to the meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries starting on Thursday in Vienna.

But Barbara Bodine, coordinator for central Iraq in the US civil administration supervising the country’s reconstruction, said on Monday Opec was unlikely to accept him.

Opec President Abdullah al-Attiyah also told Reuters in Doha on Monday that he had yet to receive any request from Iraq to attend the Opec meeting.and earlier disruption from a strike in Venezuela.—Reuters