“Given the growing demand [for oil] and the possibility of future cut in supply in North America, OPEC is likely to stabilize its ceiling in order to preserve its share in order to see what would happen in the future,” Mehdi Assali, OPEC affairs director of Iran’s petroleum ministry, said.

“A production cut by countries that have increased their output recently due to the relative absence of Iran and some other member states will be discussed in the 167th [ministerial] meeting,” he added.

OPEC ministers are due to meet on June 5.

“The market is currently oversupplied with 2.4 mb/d and for this reason there are two [conflicting] views in OPEC on whether or not this organization should take action to eliminate his surplus,” said Assali.

“Some countries that have increased their production over the past two to three years due to the sanctions [slapped] on Iran and the unrest in North Africa are not ready to cut their output now. Therefore, the meeting would discuss whether or not these countries that benefited from the relative absence of Iran, Libya and some countries in the region would be ready to return their production to the 2011 level,” he added.