Oil prices retreated to near $73 a barrel today as OPEC ministers indicated they would leave crude production levels unchanged while seeking to ensure compliance with members' output quotas. Gains by the dollar also helped push down oil prices.

By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark crude for February delivery was down 46 cents to $73.26 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 70 cents to settle at $73.72 on Monday.

The January contract, which expired Monday, ended down 89 cents at $72.47.

The 12-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which accounts for about 35 percent of global crude supply, will likely keep its production quotas unchanged, several of the leaders said.

Oil ministers from Angola, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates and Libya all said today the group had decided to hold steady its production quotas, wary of taking a step that could shock the market and undercut the ongoing fragile global economic recovery.

Shukri Ghanem, the head of Libya's National Oil Corp. and that country's de facto oil minister, said there would be "no change" with quotas.

Investors were looking for signs OPEC plans to boost compliance with existing output levels. As the price of oil has more than doubled from a year ago, some OPEC members have increasingly exceeded their quotas, analysts say.

"OPEC will probably call for greater compliance to quotas, but this will be as credible as China calling for lower carbon emissions," said Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix in Switzerland.