The Middle Eastern nation had previously indicated it wanted to leave the price at its current level.

Citing an anonymous Saudi official, the AP report said, “Saudi Arabia does not object to OPEC raising the current price band and is negotiating the level with other oil-rich Gulf countries.”

“The current band most likely will go up [but] the band could be lowered later if the market returned to normal,” added the insider, who would not elaborate further.

According to the Al-Hayat newspaper, however, the new band could be between US$28-US$30 per barrel. Citing the Qatari Oil Minister, Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah, the paper said, “A committee [is] studying raising the price band to between US$28 and US$30 a barrel. This price is fair to both consumers and producers and will help avoid fluctuations.”

OPEC member Venezuela had earlier proposed the band to be increased to between US$28 and US$35 per barrel.

In related news OPEC President Purnomo Yusgiantoro has said the trend for oil prices from September to December is “likely to be downwards”.

In a statement Purnomo said, “I’ve received good reports from futures traders, estimating that in the months between September and December, there’s a tendency for oil prices to fall. [I] attribute the expected declines to market confidence in smooth US presidential elections in November and an improving security situation in Iraq.”

“There is a global oversupply of 1.5 million barrels of oil [and] in our upcoming OPEC meeting, we will take a position, only based on the supply and demand balance,” he added, referring to the 14-16 September OPEC meeting in Vienna which expected to see the raising of the cartel’s oil production quota to help ease oil prices down.

OPEC currently produces 30 million bpd, which is 4 million barrels above its current quota.