"I think Opec should boost its production quota to avoid an explosion on the market," Igor Yusufov, Russian Energy Minister told reporters at a news conference.

"The world oil balance is on the edge of resource efficiency. There should be more resources on the market," he said.

Oil prices have jumped more than $2 since Opec last week agreed to cut production quotas by four per cent from April 1. US crude topped $36 a barrel on Thursday.

Opec cut supply because it fears prices will fall in the second quarter when demand declines after the northern winter and production rises from non-Opec suppliers like Russia. Russian Energy Minister Igor Yusufov said that Russia saw no reason to limit its gas oil exports despite recent legislation allowing the government to slap prohibitive duties on oil product exports.

"I see no reason to introduce any kind of prohibitive export duty on any sort of oil products. We have no concerns about our gas oil stocks (ahead of the highdemand agricultural sowing season)," he told reporters.

Concerns emerged late last year after new measures gave the government power to tightly control fuel oil and gas oil exports by imposing prohibitive duties when necessary.

It removed all limits on export tariffs for oil products, previously fixed at 90 per cent of export duties on crude oil.

The government is currently sticking to the old duty formula, while adjusting the new one. Export duties on all types of oil products are currently fixed at $30.50 per tonne.

Russia exported a total of 75 million tonnes of oil products to the West in 2003, up 3.4 per cent year-on-year, of which 35 million tonnes was fuel oil and 29 million was gas oil, according to state customs committee.

Traders believe real figures might be as much as 25 per cent higher as the data may not include all types of oil products.

Russia regularly imposed physical bans on fuel oil and gas oil before 2001, when it decided to switch to market mechanisms such as punitive export duties. Oil companies prefer to export oil products as it enables them to generate higher netbacks than at home, where consumption ism flat.

Yukos and a number of other Russian oil firms have said that in response to export bans or prohibitive duties the industry usually cuts back on refining oil, thereby hurting the economy.