RIYADH: Opec ministers are meeting in Vienna this Wednesday, amidst crumbling demand and rising supplies. These are difficult times, with a backdrop of events and factors impacting the industry from Iran`s nuclear programme, recovering Libyan output and the return of $100-a-barrel oil, to eurozone debt turmoil, concerns over falling global oil demand and a boom in US shale production.

Markets are curious and anxious. The issue on table is the output regimen. While some say, the outing could again prove be as acrimonious as was the June one, yet most seem to conclude that Opec now look set to agree on a higher output, in line with its current out-put of around 30 million bpd.

The notion received further endorsement when Opec hawk, Iran appeared to have given up its campaign to cut back Opec output.

Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi underlined Tehran would be guided by the recommendations of Opec secretariat. `All Opec members should really follow those recommendations because the secretariat is expert,` said Qasemi.

Opec`s secretariat is to recommend a 30 million bpd output regimen for the first half of 2012.

The secretariat is forecasting demand for Opec crude at 29.9 million bpd in the first quarter and 28.7 million bpd in the secondquarter, the annual period of slowest global fuel demand.

While the second quarter figure is well short of Opec`s current output, yet the current level of inventories, having fallen sharply this year and will need to be replen-ished, the Secretariat is suggesting.

Some ana-lysts however, insist that rather than opting for an output level, Opec oil ministers may opt to support crude prices at around $100 a barrel.

Opec ministers will avoid talks on new quotas, until Libyan production is fully restored and Saudi output is trimmed back, Saudibank SAMBA said in its monthly bulletin. `As such, the effectively irrelevant quotas agreed back in 2008 will remain in place,` it suggested.

`That said, we expect the meeting will be less contentious thanthe last and that a consensus will emerge overthe need to support prices at around $100 given members higher budget break-even prices.

`Should market fundamentals and prices weaken significantly during the first half of 2012, then a response from Opec is possible at its June (2013) meeting,` SAMBA added.And in the run up to the ministerial, opec continues to echo satisfaction. On Tuesday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez expressed comfort at the existing scenario, terming the current oil prices fair, insisting his government would push to keep them at current levels. `Look how it (the oil price) has stabilised in recent months at $100-120/barrel and that`s where its fair price is hopefully it will even out there,` Chavez said in Caracas.

Opec Secretary-General Abdalla Salem El-Badri also told reporters late in November that crude-oil markets were `balanced` and current prices (of around $100 a barrel) were at a `comfortable` level.However, the IEA continued to exert pressure. The agency said it hoped Opec will make a `responsible decision` on oil production at its next meeting in Vienna.

`Producers need clients with healthy economies and I hope my colleagues from producing countries will make responsible decisions considering those facts,` IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol said while in Warsaw.

With softening markets, collapsing economy and emerging new energy frontiers, Opec cannot and should not be expected to open the taps further, making the markets collapse even earlier than due.

That is hara-kiri and Opec shouldn`t be pushed to that end.