Oil Above $30 As OPEC Seeks Longer Cuts LONDON (Reuters) - Oil markets roared above $30 a barrel for the first time in nine years on Friday as OPEC oil ministers from Iran, Libya and Algeria urged the cartel to prolong deep output cuts for another six months. Brent benchmark crude for March leaped a full dollar higher to $27.11 a barrel, its highest since the Gulf War in 1991, before slipping back to $26.90 by 1535 GMT. Signs that major OPEC producers will keep oil output curbs in place beyond a scheduled end-March expiry has pulled already sky-high prices up another four dollars 17 percent -- in just eleven days. Gains found fresh impetus as Libyan Energy Minister Abdullah al-Badri told Reuters by telephone from Tripoli that he had agreed with new Algerian Oil Minister Chakib Khalil and Iran's Bijan Zanganeh to propose that OPEC extend supply cuts until September. The producer group's deal to slash more than four million barrels per day of output has nearly trebled prices in less than a year, fuelling concern among industrialized countries that world economic growth could suffer. European Central Bank Chief Economist Otmar Issing said there was a danger that a temporary rise in inflation due to surging oil prices would become more permanent if it led to higher wage settlements. ``We see developments in headline inflation heavily impacted by oil prices, which have tripled in 12 months,'' Issing said in London. ``We face a dangerous, fragile situation as wage negotiations are just starting in Europe.'' A snowstorm barreling across the U.S. northeast has triggered even faster price rises there, lifting U.S. light crude late on Thursday to just four cents off the $30 mark. Analysts warn that the longer the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries delays raising output, the more volatile the price of the strategic commodity will become. ``The longer they wait, the more acute their problems,'' said Standard Bank in London. ``Lower stocks promise only instability.'' ``The lower stocks are drawn down below normal levels, the higher OPEC's new output levels will eventually have to be, and the bigger OPEC's potential problem later.'' LOW GLOBAL STOCKS Behind the wave of buying are fears that world stocks have fallen too far. Forecasts of abnormally cold weather in parts of the U.S. which consumes a fifth of world oil can only squeeze supplies further and drain stocks at an even faster rate, traders said. Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), the west's energy watchdog, warned on Thursday of a potential severe supply shortage if OPEC kept a lid on production at current levels. Global supplies could be as much as three million barrels per day below demand in the first quarter and as much as 1.5 million bpd below requirements in the second quarter, it said. Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi, OPEC's most influential policy maker, said last week that he was content with market conditions and could see no reason to change production policy for the remainder of 2000. OPEC is scheduled to decide policy at a meeting in Vienna on March 27. The Spring Issue of Electrifying Times will be devoted to what you as subscribers can do to your own car, to beat the higher gas prices that are coming. (breakthrough vapor technology that has been suppressed for years is ready to hit the market) Subscribe!!!