VIENNA, Sept 18 (Xinhuanet) -- Current OPEC President and Kuwaiti Minister of Energy Ahmed Fahd al Sabah said here Sunday that OPEC members should raise their daily oil production quotas in order to stabilize the oil prices on international markets.

    Although the current oil supply to international markets is adequate, it is necessary to raise the daily oil output ceiling because the Northern Hemisphere is reaching a winter fuel need peak and Hurricane Katrina produced devastating effects on the oil-producing capacity along the Mexico Gulf coast of the United States, Fahd al Sabah said.

    Before the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) begins a two-day ministerial meeting here Monday, he also said the current oil prices on international markets are too high and it is important for OPEC to exert efforts to stabilize the prices.

    He predicted that OPEC will make a decision Tuesday to raise the daily oil output ceiling by 500, 000 barrels.

    OPEC, which accounts for 40 percent of the world crude oil production, mulled over several ways Sunday to calm the tense energy markets amid wide-spread skepticism that simply pumping more crude oil would curb near record-high prices.

    The largest organization of oil exporters in the world is expected to make a conclusion at the coming meeting on an initial proposal to raise its official output quota by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) to a total 28.5 million bpd despite a current production surplus.

    An official quota of 28.5 million bpd would mark an all-time high since the headline OPEC figure was created in 1987.

    But speaking to reporters after most of the 11 OPEC ministers had arrived, Fahd al Sabah said another option had emerged, which is that of leaving the current quota unchanged while placing up to2 million bpd on call in the market to be drawn on if needed.

    The OPEC option would provide immediate supply when there is a demand in the market and that would stabilize the price, he said.

    But some OPEC members, which oppose the rise of the oil output quota, say a lack of refining capacity, and not crude supply, has maintained gasoline prices near record highs, although the price of crude has also stayed above 60 US dollars a barrel.

    However, OPEC made it clear that oil exporters are concerned by the economies where consumers have been hit by sharply higher prices for petroleum products such as gasoline, Fahd al Sabah noted. Enditem