Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries should cut oil production when it meets next month in Vienna to halt the decline in oil prices, Libya's top energy official said, echoing earlier comments from the group's president.

OPEC announced yesterday it would hold an extraordinary meeting on Nov. 18 as the worsening credit crunch threatens to restrain economic growth and curtail energy demand. Oil has slumped 45 percent from a July record to trade near $81 a barrel today.

``We're very worried, OPEC should protect its interest,'' Shokri Ghanem, chairman of Libya's National Oil Corp., said on the Web site of state-run Jana news agency in Tripoli. ``We're suffering from the decline in oil prices and from the decline in the value of the assets in which we invested because of the global financial crisis.''

The producer group is holding the Vienna meeting before one scheduled for Dec. 17 in Oran, Algeria. OPEC President and Algerian Oil Minister Chakib Khelil yesterday said the outcome of the November meeting ``will very likely be to cut production.''

Oil for November delivery fell as much as $5.46, or 6.3 percent, to $81.13 a barrel today on the New York Mercantile Exchange and traded at $82.79 at 8:02 a.m. local time.

``OPEC has made clear again and again they want to defend the price range anywhere between $80 and $100,'' Johannes Benigni, chief executive officer of Vienna-based consulting firm JBC Energy, said today in a Bloomberg Television interview.

Comply With Quotas

At its last gathering on Sept. 10, OPEC agreed to comply strictly with output quotas, a move that OPEC officials said would effectively cut oil supply by 500,000 barrels a day.

The official production quota for 11 of OPEC's members is 28.8 million barrels a day. Collectively, those members exceeded that target by 390,000 barrels a day in September, according to Bloomberg estimates. Those 11 nations do not include Iraq, which has no quota, and Indonesia, set to leave OPEC next year.

A supply cut is an option, according to Qatar.

``OPEC would resort to a production cut if it's needed to balance supply and demand,'' Qatari Oil Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah said in an interview yesterday with Dubai's al-Arabiya channel, published on the television's Web site.

The International Energy Agency, an adviser to 28 nations, today cut its forecast for global oil demand next year by 0.5 percent as the worst financial crisis since the 1930s threatens a global recession.

Oil Demand Falling

The IEA lowered its 2009 projection by 440,000 barrels a day to 87.2 million barrels a day, the Paris-based agency said today in its monthly report, citing a weaker economic outlook from the International Monetary Fund.

Supply forecasts were also cut. Non-OPEC supply growth this year has been ``largely wiped out'' after hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and pipeline disruptions in Azerbaijan.

As a net effect, the IEA lowered its estimate of next year's demand for OPEC's crude by 200,000 barrels a day, to 30.9 million barrels a day. That's about 1.3 million barrels a day less than the IEA thinks OPEC produced last month.

Consuming nations, already suffering from a credit and banking crisis, are wary of further efforts to revive oil prices. U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he's urging OPEC leaders to maintain oil output and energy companies to pass on recent price declines to consumers.

``I'm talking to the leaders of OPEC who are responsible for setting the oil price and telling them they must not cut the production of oil,'' Brown said today in Swindon, England. ``There must be a steady reduction in the oil price.''

Saudi Arabia, OPEC's biggest and most influential oil exporter, has yet to comment on the new meeting.

In its formal statement yesterday, the Vienna-based OPEC Secretariat didn't mention production cuts and referred instead to its ``determination to ensure that oil market fundamentals are kept in balance and market stability is maintained.''

OPEC set its November meeting for 10 days after the U.S. presidential election because OPEC members ``don't want to be involved in the U.S. election campaign,'' Benigni said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Maher Chmaytelli in Athens at mchmaytelli@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 10, 2008 08:05 EDT