Reuters/Vienna/London
An Opec advisory panel has agreed that the group should raise output to meet higher second-half oil demand, as delegates gave split views over a possible increase in targets at next week’s meeting.One Gulf Opec delegate said the group would consider the first hike in its output ceiling since 2007. But two other delegates, including one from another Gulf Opec member, said they saw no need for the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to increase limits on June 8.The debate comes as persistently high oil prices threaten to slow an already faltering economic recovery, and amid mounting pressure from consumer nations demanding the group take action.Opec’s Economic Commission Board at the group’s Vienna headquarters, a panel which looks at data on the oil market but does not decide Opec policy, met on Friday and agreed more oil was needed, a delegate who attended a meeting of the group’s advisory board said on Friday night.“There will be more demand during the second half of the year, and there is a need for Opec to meet that demand,” said the delegate, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said the ECB had made no recommendation on how much more oil to pump.Earlier this week Gulf sources had said Opec would discuss an increase of up to 1.5mn barrels per day (bpd), nearly equal to the production cut off in Libya, but that a rise of 1mn bpd would be the most likely outcome. But on Friday, delegates appeared less certain.“There will be a consideration to raise output given that in the second half of the year demand will be higher, but this is just a consideration, not something certain,” the first Gulf delegate said.Opec oil ministers meet on Wednesday in Vienna to decide output policy. The two other delegates, including one from another Gulf Opec member, said an increase in the group’s target was not needed.“I expect that the quota will be unchanged as it was at the last meeting. There is no shortage of crude in the market,” said one of the delegates.Another delegate thought the prospect of a formal change in Opec policy unlikely because several member countries will be represented by new heads of delegation.Libya’s representative at the ECB talks was the Gaddafi government-appointed Libyan national representative to Opec, Mahmud Sadeg, a person familiar with the matter said. It is not yet clear who will head Libya’s delegation at next week’s meeting after state oil company chief Shokri Ghanem defected.Earlier this week, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appointed Mohammad Aliabadi as caretaker of the country’s oil ministry.Two Gulf delegates have said Opec might raise its supply target by as much as 1.5mn bpd at the ministerial meet on Wednesday.