US benchmark light crude futures were trading 14 cents firmer at $30.48 a barrel in Asia having shed $1.12 in New York dealings. London Brent crude futures lost $1.28 on Thursday to $29.26.

Thursday's losses were triggered by a pledge from OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia that it would supply more oil if needed to stabilise the rampant crude market and cool heated prices. Hopes that Iraq would not disrupt supplies later this year had added to bearish sentiment and helped prices down.

Despite the decline, prices still remain above a preferred target set by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) of $22-28 per barrel, a level the group sees as suitable to give appropriate returns to producers while not risking economic growth in consuming nations.

OPEC heads of state, rounding off a two-day summit in Venezuela to celebrate the cartel's 40th birthday, laid blame for high oil prices squarely on industrialised nations.

The producers' group denied it was endangering world economic growth and pointed the finger instead at high taxation rates on fuel in the developed world.

"Excessive taxation on petroleum products accounts for the highest share of the final price to the consumers in the major consuming countries," said an OPEC declaration issued as the summit drew to a close on Thursday. It again called on consumer countries to reduce fuel taxes for the benefit of their citizens and world growth.

OPEC, which pumps 40 per cent of the world's oil production and controls two-thirds of internationally traded crude, has come under mounting pressure from consumers to hike output to stem this year's relentless price rally, which has seen oil ramp up to the highest levels in a decade.

The group has raised production three times this year by a total 3.2 million barrels per day (bpd), including an 800,000 bpd hike due to take effect from October 1. OPEC says high taxation rates, bottlenecks in the refinery industry and financial speculation are also to blame for rocketing prices.

Supply now outstrips demand, it says.

SPR release gets go-ahead but may backfire
The United States, fearing that low crude and refined product inventories will not be sufficient to meet demand in the upcoming winter, has helped oil's recent decline by unlocking emergency stockpiles. Washington last week gave the go-ahead to release one million bpd of reserve crude throughout October to ward off any shortfall.

Oil fell about $3 on the decision. But some analysts say the release may have backfired as lower crude and product prices had made it more profitable to ship heating oil barrels to Europe.

Traders in the US Gulf Coast and New York hubs have already reported half a dozen cargoes being loaded for export since Washington's announcement on Friday.

"The administration shot themselves in the foot," said Tom Knight, analyst at Redmeteor, an Internet energy trading company. "They've increased the incentive to export our heating oil when we should be building inventories here."

Iraqi oil will flow
Iraq said it would not curtail its UN monitored oil supplies, which account for four percent of internationally traded crude, but warned that a lack of spare parts was pressuring production.

"We are not going to hold back oil supplies," Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan told a news conference at the end of the OPEC summit.

"Iraq is not an opportunist... Iraq has never held back oil supplies under any circumstances as long as it has the ability to (keep pumping)." Some traders had worried that Iraq might disrupt oil flows by stopping or slowing crude exports if a Kuwaiti claim for Gulf War compensation went through this week without any gesture toward Baghdad.