A meeting was held between the producers' cartel Opec on Wednesday, after which oil price rose above $72 a barrel.

At the meeting, Opec took the decision to avoid any change in the amount of oil being produced by its members.

Opec said that though there are indications that economic recovery is underway; however, there are concerns about the pace of the recovery.

Since the euro continued to gain ground against the US dollar in currency markets, hike in US light sweet crude appeared 85 cents to $72.16 in Asian trading.

The reason for pricing oil in dollars is that if US currency falls, it becomes cheaper for the buyers using other currencies.

A statement issued by Opec said: "Since the market remains oversupplied and given the downside risks associated with the extremely fragile recovery, [Opec] once again agreed to leave current production levels unchanged for the time being."

While last December, prices for oil were pretty low, they have approximately doubled now; however, the prices are half the levels reached earlier in 2008.

It should be noted that about 35% of the world's crude oil supply is provided by Opec countries.

(via TopNews United States. Contributed by Aaron Ross)