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Vienna Thursday (AFP) Wary of a worldwide glut of oil with the Iraq war over, OPEC is ready to cut production to keep prices in its target range of 22-28 dollars a barrel, OPEC ministers said on arriving for a meeting here.

"Tomorrow we will make sure we keep the market where it is in the band," Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali al-Nuaimi told journalists in Vienna, a day ahead of a meeting in the Austrian capital of the 11-nation Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, without the participation of Iraq.

"We are concerned if we don't take some steps that an oil glut may form in two, three months," Al-Nuaimi said, with the possibility of Iraq resuming crude oil exports in the near future.

Qatar Oil Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, who is the OPEC president, said he thought there was a surplus on the world market of more than two million barrels per day (bpd).

He said the OPEC ministers would "discuss all scenarios" and that all options were open.

Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said OPEC would "talk about the discipline of production," referring to members' current quota-busting output. It was not clear if OPEC would take any decisions Thursday. An OPEC source said the meeting was being labeled a "consultative" one.

The ministers "don't want to be under pressure to take any decision" and could postpone a decision until a regular meeting scheduled for June, the source said.

The source had said on Tuesday that the cartel was looking to cut production in order to keep oil prices from falling too far and would call on its members to respect the group's 24.5 million bpd overall production quota, which is currently being exceeded by some two million bpd.

OPEC should move first by getting its members to respect the quota, United Arab Emirates (UAE) Oil Minister Obeid bin Saif al-Nasseri said on Wednesday. "I think we have to tackle first compliance, then we shall see if there is a need to cut," he said upon arriving in Vienna.

"Obviously there is oversupply in the market," Al-Nasseri said.

OPEC had announced in January an output increase, raising its combined ceiling by 6.5 percent to 24.5 million bpd, to curb a surge in prices triggered by a strike in Venezuela and the threat of war in Iraq.

Al-Nuaimi said that if the cartel had not increased production in excess of the quota as war with Iraq grew nearer, "prices would have shot up."

He said that "you have to give OPEC some credit, a very big credit," recalling that analysts had feared as the war approached in March that prices could rocket to 100 dollars a barrel. In fact they had stayed below 40 dollars a barrel.

The problem now was that prices were falling.

The United States on Wednesday welcomed efforts by oil-producing countries, notably Saudi Arabia, to boost oil supply during the Iraq war.

A White House spokeswoman, Claire Buchan, appeared to urge OPEC to maintain that stance, warning that "sustained economic growth requires ample supplies of energy".

Oil prices tumbled Wednesday on news of a big rise in US crude oil stocks, despite signals from OPEC energy chiefs that they were ready to act to avert a glut on world markets.

The price of benchmark Brent North Sea crude oil for June delivery slid 1.11 dollars per barrel to 24.35 dollars in New York.

In London, Commerzbank analyst Jon Rigby said traders were trying to gauge what would be decided at the OPEC meeting. Analysts said that Saudi Arabia, the biggest OPEC member, had been pumping above its quota to help calm a market rattled by supply disruptions from Venezuela and Iraq.

"We expect the Saudis, having enjoyed several months of nine-plus million bpd of production and a consequent cash waterfall, to swing output down as needed to support prices," said Deutche Bank analyst Adam Sieminski.

Iraq was excluded from the OPEC quota system because of UN sanctions imposed on the country in the wake of its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

It was not clear when those sanctions would be lifted.

France called Tuesday on the UN Security Council immediately to suspend civilian sanctions against Iraq, but said that removal of sanctions, as suggested by the United States, required the UN to certify Iraq free of banned weapons.

Qatari minister Al-Attiyah said he hoped that Iraq would, after 10 years of not taking part in OPEC, "create a new government organized by the United Nations" and "come back happily to play their own role" in the cartel.

He said he was "not afraid" about Iraq producing too much oil.

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