The steepest drop in oil prices in 15 years -- from $78.40 a barrel for U.S. oil in mid-July to below $60 earlier this week -- prompted OPEC's President Edmund Daukoru to tell Reuters on Tuesday "something needs to be done to steady the price".
OPEC last met on September 11, when oil was around $66, and decided to leave its output ceiling at 28 million barrels per day until the next scheduled meeting on December 14. But oil's continued slide is causing alarm in some OPEC states.
"Consultations are ongoing, but there has not been a decision to hold an emergency meeting as of yet," the OPEC official told Reuters.
Gulf sources said any emergency meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was unlikely before the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan ends in late October.
When the time does come for OPEC to cut output, the focus will be on Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, and other Gulf OPEC producers Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
But these countries appear in no rush to act.
Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Ali al-Jarrah al-Sabah said on Tuesday most OPEC ministers were content with current prices and he did not believe OPEC was inclined to reduce output now.
"Now, there is no inclination to make any amendment," he told Al Arabiya television.
That view was echoed on Tuesday by oil officials in Qatar and Libya.
OPEC has carefully avoided setting a target price for oil, but some individual ministers have indicated a comfort level.
Iran has said it wants the price for OPEC's basket of crudes to hold above $60 -- around $65 a barrel for U.S. crude.
OPEC President Edmund Daukoru told Reuters on Tuesday that global oil supply was expected to be a "colossal" 1.8 million bpd above demand by the second quarter of 2007 and that "something needs to be done to steady the price".
As a group OPEC has been producing below its 28 million barrels per day ceiling all year.
But Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE have been pumping well beyond their allocated limits to make up for those struggling to meet theirs, such as Venezuela and Indonesia.
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