OPEC President Chakib Khelil opened the meeting of the oil group Wednesday by reaffirming its view that oil markets are well supplied and crude inventories are set to remain within their five-year average.
OPEC meets Wednesday and is widely expected to hold current production unchanged despite calls from large consuming nations to pump more oil to alleviate record oil prices.
Ministers were meeting first with counterparts from non-OPEC countries before later going into closed session.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in large part continues to lay the blame for scorching oil prices at the door of speculative investors.
"OPEC is concerned about the volatility of the market," said Khelil. "Many factors are contributing to this volatility, including a weaker dollar, speculation, the geopolitical situation."
"Heightened levels of (financial) speculation have entered the (global oil) market over the past few years and these have not been welcomed by this organization," he said.
Khelil said the group was currently producing 32 million barrels a day.