OPEC would need to meet to discuss policy if the crude price hits $100 a barrel, Kuwait's oil minister said on Tuesday. US crude touched $82 a barrel last week, the highest level since October 2008 on optimism of an economic recovery in top energy consumer the United States. “Then we'd hold a special session and we'd decide,” Sheikh Ahmad Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah told reporter at the Gulf Arab state's parliament when asked what the producer group would do in response to $100 oil. OPEC pumps more than a third of the world's oil. OPEC President Jose Botelho de Vasconcelos said on Sunday that the producer group would increase output at its next meeting in December to protect the global economic recovery should the price hit $100. OPEC would only increase output if stocks fell to 55 days of forward cover or below, Sheikh Ahmad said. Oil stocks in developed OECD countries stand at nearly 61 days, well above the five-year average and higher than OPEC would like. The group has kept output curbs in place for over a year as recession ate into demand and forced prices down from a high of over $147 in July 2008 to a low near $32 in December. It pledged to cut output 4.2 million bpd late last year to match supply with sliding demand. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would intervene if oil prices were to reach $100 a barrel, according to the group's president and Kuwait's oil minister. Analysts have been speculating about whether or not oil prices would again breach $100 a barrel. Speculation and dollar weakness were driving the oil price, Sheikh Ahmad said. Kuwait is the world's fourth-largest oil exporter and sits on about a tenth of global reserves. There is a lot of leverage in Kuwait, as the current output is only 2.2 million barrels a day and the capacity is 2.7 million, so there's 500,000 barrels a day idle capacity.
