The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is ready to boost oil output if it sees a real shortage in supply and a fall in inventories, oil ministers from the group said as crude prices traded near a one-year high.

Some in the OPEC have since last week been raising the prospect of an output increase, a sign they are concerned the rallying oil price could hamper economic recovery. "If we see real shortage in the world, we will increase production to meet the shortage," Qatar’s oil minister Abdullah al-Attiyah told reporters on Tuesday in Ras Laffan, Qatar.

OPEC president Jose Botelho de Vasconcelos, also Angola’s oil minister, had said on Sunday the group would pump more at its next meeting on December 22 to protect the global economic recovery should the price hit $100.

US crude hit a 2009 high of $82 last week and was trading above $79 on Tuesday. Kuwait’s oil minister said on Tuesday the group would need to meet if crude went to $100. "Then we’d hold a special session and we’d decide," Sheikh Ahmad al-Abdullah al-Sabah told reporters.

Many in the oil market say oil’s rally has been driven by expectation of economic recovery and a weak dollar rather than a tighter oil supply and demand balance. Consumers are, by some of OPEC’s favourite yardsticks, well supplied. Oil stocks in developed OECD countries are equal to 60.7 days of demand, above the five-year average, and millions of barrels are stored at sea on tankers.

The group would only increase output if stocks fell to 55 days of forward cover or below, the Kuwaiti minister said.

For Iran, OPEC’s second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia and often an advocate of measures likely to bolster oil prices, pumping more crude was not needed. Mohammad Ali Khatibi, Iran’s OPEC governor, said signs of global economic recovery, a weaker US currency and the beginning of the cold season in Europe and the US were factors behind the price rise.

"Under current conditions, requesting OPEC to increase its crude output in order to decrease the oil price would be an improper request," Khatibi was quoted as saying by a news agency on Tuesday.

The group agreed to curb its output by 4.2 million barrels per day (bpd) last year. It has kept official policy unchanged at meetings this year, but industry estimates show actual OPEC production is rising. Should it wish to raise output, OPEC could lift its production target, which is set at 24.84 million bpd for 11 members, or continue the more immediate option of pumping above the target.

Whether OPEC has that discussion in December or not, world oil demand is expected to resume growth in 2010 and capping a rising oil price may become more of an issue next year, analysts said.

"We believe the issue of managing the price upside will be increasingly important for the market in 2010," said Barclays Capital in a report.