Libya's top oil official Shokri Ghanem said Tuesday he believed the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will keep its formal production target unchanged when it meets next week as long as crude prices stay well above $90 a barrel.
"At the prices we're at I don't think there's a need for OPEC to do anything. We will have our meeting and review all the data but I don't there will be anything for us to change," Ghanem told Dow Jones Newswires by telephone from Tripoli.
If that scenario plays out, Ghanem said, OPEC may decide to meet again in June to review its production policy. "We usually meet in June after our March meeting, but we will see," said Ghanem, who heads the Libyan National Oil Co.
Front-month U.S. crude oil futures were trading down about 45 cents at $98.78 a barrel at 1057 GMT Tuesday.
Ghanem said he had no real concern about the health of global oil consumption because much of the demand growth is coming from developing countries and, so far, those nations have avoided any big knock-on effects emanating from U.S. credit and housing problems.
Echoing other OPEC officials in recent days, Ghanem said he was concerned about a sustained buildup in oil inventories following the typical drop-off in energy demand that follows the close of winter in the U.S. and other oil-consuming nations in the northern hemisphere, which officially ends next month. "We will have to watch the numbers very closely," he said.
OPEC's production target, not including Iraq, which isn't apart of the group's allocation system, is 29.67 million barrels a day, but OPEC nations, minus Iraq, are pumping just over 400,000 barrels a day above that target, according to tanker tracker Petrologistics.
Analysts say it's likely that OPEC nations will informally begin to pump less crude and lower output closer to their target level in the weeks ahead, particularly with many refiners in the U.S. and elsewhere scheduled to go into planned maintenance, which cuts oil demand.
OPEC's 13 nations produce around four of every 10 barrels consumed daily in the world.