The weekly average prices of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) showed a high frequency of price changes last week.

On the five trading days from Nov. 2 to Nov. 6, OPEC oil prices fluctuated wildly, ranging from 74.95 U.S. dollars per barrel on Nov. 2 to 77.60 dollars on Nov. 4, only one cent lower than the highest record this year. However, it dropped to 76.25 dollars on Nov. 6.

It was the second time that OPEC weekly average oil prices had been maintained above 70 dollars a barrel for four consecutive weeks since August.

But the price only saw a weekly increase of 0.33. dollars last week, the Vienna-based cartel said Monday.

Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed that U.S. commercial crude oil inventories decreased by nearly 3.94 million barrels due to reduced imports, pushing the international oil prices up to a high level last Wednesday.

The U.S. unemployment rate climbed close to 10 percent and the Federal Reserve announced its decision to maintain the benchmark overnight lending rate at a very low level.

These messages suggested that the U.S. economic recovery was very fragile, which largely suppressed the oil prices and led to a sharp decline in international oil prices on last weekend.

In the context of a fragile economic recovery across the world, some OPEC members believed that current international crude oil supplies in the market remained in surplus and therefore it should not increase oil production, though the oil price has doubled this year.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet