* Minister says OPEC expects high demand for crude in summer
* Shahristani sees 85 percent compliance with output cuts
(UPDATE 1, adds quotes, details, byline)
By Aref Mohammed
BASRA, Iraq, April 16 (Reuters) - Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said OPEC expects oil prices to rise during the coming months and demand for crude in the northern hemisphere's summer to be high.
"We, in OPEC, expect oil prices to keep on rising during the coming months and especially during summer the demand for crude will be high," Shahristani told Reuters on Thursday during a visit to the southern Iraqi oil hub of Basra.
Shahristani said in an interview that he saw more than 85 percent compliance among members of the oil-exporters' group with output cuts agreed last year, and that this level of compliance had led to "an improvement" in oil prices.
Outside observers have said OPEC has delivered 83 percent of promised output curbs totalling 4.2 million barrels per day since September last year.
Oil
The minister said OPEC would continue to watch the oil market carefully ahead of an extraordinary meeting called for May 28.
"In May, we will study oil market figures and if we find there is a need to decide a further cut, then definitely we will make such a decision," he said.
Iraq is the only one of the 12 members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries that does not have an output target.
It holds the world's third largest proven crude reserves but its oilfields are largely underexploited following decades of war, sanctions and underinvestment.
The sectarian bloodshed unleashed by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion has begun to recede and the government says the time has come for foreign investors to arrive.
Iraq this year threw open its oil fields to foreign companies in two rounds of service contract tenders. (Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Writing by Michael Christie, editing by Anthony Barker)