Commenting on an International Energy Agency (IEA) report predicting oil consumption contracting for the first time in 25 years, the chairman of the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC), Shukri Ghanem, said OPEC would take that into consideration when meeting on Dec.17 in Oran, Algeria.

"We need to shore up the market by a substantial amount," Ghanem said on Thursday when asked Dow Jones Newswires how much OPEC could decide to cut output.

Two days earlier on Tuesday, Ghanem insisted that OPEC should commit to a "substantial" reduction in output.

"The market needs some substantial action," he said.
He said oil prices were rather low. "I think they are close to a bottom and after the OPEC meeting, they will rebound," he added.
"We need to redress the market if we feel the economic situation is affecting demand," Ghanem said.

But he added OPEC "wasn't looking at the short-term" interests of its members.

"If the glut continues so many projects will be postponed, there will be another energy crisis in the coming years," he said.

In Tuesday's early afternoon trading on London's InterContinental Exchange (ICE) Tuesday, Brent North Sea crude for delivery in January dropped 37 cents to 43.05 dollars a barrel. Light sweet crude for January retreated 15 cents to 43.56 dollars on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX).

"Cutting down production will help the price and so will help oil availability of oil and the continuity in projects," Ghanem said.

On the other hand, "the lower the price now...the harder it will bounce back," he said, as oil scarce would become scarce in the medium term.

Ghanem said OPEC wouldn't force non-OPEC oil producers to join an output reduction as a condition to implement its own cut decision.

Seven years ago, OPEC ministers demanded that independent producers reduce exports by 500,000- 600,000 b/d as a condition for the organization to cut 1.5 million barrels a day.

But Ghanem said he was still calling non-OPEC producers to join a reduction. "We wish that that the different players will contribute to the common interest," he said. (AFP,Dow Jones Newswires)