Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) -- OPEC finance ministers will meet to study a proposal from Venezuela to price oil in a currency other than the U.S. dollar, the group's President Chakib Khelil said.

Algeria wants to keep the U.S. currency for pricing the fuel, he said, according to a report published today by the state-run Algerie Presse-Service.

``As long as the U.S. maintains its political and economic power, the U.S. dollar will remain the currency for billing oil sales,'' Khelil said, without saying when the finance chiefs may meet.

Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, also wants to maintain dollar pricing, Saud al-Faisal, the kingdom's foreign minister, said in December. At the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' November summit, al-Faisal refused to allow the inclusion of Venezuela's proposal in the negotiations, and suggested that finance ministers meet instead to discuss its economic implications.

Iran has halted all oil transactions in dollars, Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari said Dec. 8, according to the state-run ISNA news agency.

To contact the reporter on this story: Maher Chmaytelli in Nicosia at mchmaytelli@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 14, 2008 03:55 EST