OPEC members continue to break their own quotas

* username: rupertbu

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' compliance with production targets dropped to the lowest in a year last month as output rose.

Production from the 11 members bound by quotas rose to 26.681 million barrels a day in December, from 26.613 million a day the previous month, the group's Vienna-based secretariat said in a monthly report today. Their compliance rate with targets slipped to 56 percent, from 58 percent in November. The organization kept its 2010 forecasts for demand and non-OPEC supply mostly unchanged.

OPEC, responsible for about 40 percent of global crude supply, announced a record production curb in December 2008 in response to the sharpest demand drop since the 1980s. The group's adherence to output targets has since waned as consumption revives and prices gain.