The question facing the Opec oil producer group which meets this week is when, not if, to cut its oil production target as crude prices slide in the face of weakening economic growth, analysts say.
Most analysts surveyed by AFP expect the 13-nation cartel to agree to trim its output informally at its meeting Tuesday before waiting until later, most probably a scheduled gathering in December, to alter its official target.
The trimming will be achieved by members, mainly powerhouse Saudi Arabia, agreeing to cut their excess production above their Opec quota, which would remove oil from the market but not amount to a formal change in policy.
Under fierce pressure from the United States, Saudi Arabia agreed in May and June to increase production to help calm the runaway crude market which reached a pinnacle on July 11, when crude struck 147 dollars a barrel in New York.
"Even Saudi Arabia doesn't want the price to come down too much," said analyst Manouchechr Takin at the Britain-based Centre for Global Energy Studies (CGSE) referring to the moderate and pro-US Middle East producer.
The stakes are entirely different to the last time Opec members met in March, when crude prices had broken through 100 dollars a barrel and were on a steep upwards trajectory.
This time, oil prices are on the way down approaching 100 dollars a barrel - a level many members, above all the traditional price hawks of Iran and Venezuela, are keen to protect.
But economic conditions, which determine demand for oil, have worsened considerably, with many European economies facing recession, the US struggling and fears growing about the emerging economies of Asia. Opec producers have to balance their desire for revenues from high oil prices against the danger that high prices could choke off feeble economic growth.
"There is quite a bit of uncertainty still over how oil demand will develop in the light of economic growth prospects in the US and Europe as well as Asia," said Noe Van Hulst, the secretary general of the International Energy Forum.
Analyst John Hall, who runs his own oil consultancy, John Hall Associates, expects a cut in production via a crackdown on overproduction by Saudi Arabia. "I think they'll hold up (their production target) at where it is and reinforce targets. That'll bring the output number down," he told AFP.
"It's a way of not announcing an official reduction in output."
He estimated that Opec was pumping about a million barrels per day (bpd) more than its output target of 27.25 million bpd, with Saudi Arabia accounting for 700,000 bpd of this figure. "The focus of debate among Opec ministers gathering next week in Vienna will not be whether there is a need to cut crude oil production, but rather when," said analysts at Washington-based energy consultancy PFC Energy.
PFC raised the spectre of an outright output target cut on Tuesday, saying support was growing for it despite the unpopularity of such a move in consumer countries where transport and heating costs are rising. If not on Tuesday, then a cut would be announced in December at the next Opec meeting. "Though Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) will not be bullied into agreeing to a production cut, the near consensus within the group that some reduction in volumes is needed ... raises the distinct possibility that the final communiqué in Vienna will announce an output reduction," PFC continued.
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries meets regularly to set its production policy, with each member assigned a quota or production target.
In the lead up to the meeting Tuesday, Opec member Iran suggested that overproduction should be addressed in Vienna and Libya said that the market was oversupplied at the moment. "The oil supply should be proportionate to demand and control of excess supply is an issue which should be addressed at the upcoming Opec meeting," Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said on September 2.
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