Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the Eleventh Conference on Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals held Monday in Tehran, Mr. Namdar-Zanganeh said if OPEC and non-OPEC producers succeeded in reaching an agreement on supply and demand of crude oil, it would be a step forward to future decision making.

The 11-members Organisation was hosting experts from non-OPEC countries in its Head Quarters in Vienna to study the market situation and put forward proposals for stability of the crude oil prices.

An OPEC official qualified the meeting as "successful", but did not provide further details.

"Both OPEC and non-OPEC experts reached the same conclusion, observing that the markets was not in an usual situation and therefore one must act with maximum prudence and caution", IRNA quoted Mr. Adnan Shahaboddin, the Head of the OPEC's Research Division in Vienna.

Russia, Egypt, Norway, Mexico, Kazakhstan and Angola attended the meeting.

While Norway and Britain have refused to participate at the OPEC ministerial meetings, Russia told the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavetz that it could not accept any reduction in its current output.

Oil presently plays a major role in the Russian economy, accounting for a quarter of the entire national budget revenue.

Quoted by the official Iranian news agency IRNA, Mr. Namdar-Zanganeh said any consensus reached between the OPEC and non-OPEC producers would benefit all, the consumers as well as the producers.

"The market situation is such that OPEC and non-OPEC producers have boarded a ship during a storm. The two groups should cooperate to overcome the current storm", the Iranian Oil Minister observed in the meeting.

Oil prices have fallen by around 20 percent since the September 11 attacks on the United States and fresh in the memory of oil producing states is the oil price crisis of 1998-1999, when prices dropped below 10 dollars a barrel after the Asian economic crisis.

Brent North Sea rose to 21.37 dollars, up from 21.26 overnight.

Asked about OPEC's automatic mechanism of trimming output by 500,000 bpd when oil prices go beyond the price range of 22-28 for 20 consecutive working days, Mr. Namdar-Zanganeh said that the mechanism was effective under ordinary circumstances, but, the current situation especially after the 11 September terrorist attacks, the market has become abnormal and unpredictable. This, he said, calls for special measures.

However OPEC's Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates said the group stands ready to slash output, and has enlisted Oman as the first non-OPEC recruit in the battle to shore up oil prices.

"In principle there is agreement (in OPEC) to change the production ceiling, but I am not going to give out figures", said UAE Oil Minister Obaid bin Saif al-Nasseri, speaking to reporters after a meeting in Abu Dhabi with Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi and Oman's Mohammed bin Hamed al-Rumhy, whose country pumps about 900,000 barrels per day of crude oil.

"We have already reduced our production three times. I cannot see what prevents us from doing it again in order to preserve the price band" of 22 to 28 dollars per barrel, Mr. Nuaimi said, adding that "OPEC will take all necessary measures to maintain the band".

Nuaimi said global oil supply was excessive and, asked if this meant the oil cartel was going to reduce production or, instead, decide to tighten members' compliance with their quotas, he replied "All of the above".

Asked if he agreed that the excess volume was in the range of 700,000 to one million bpd, Mr. Nuaimi said the experts meeting on October 29 in Vienna will "hopefully distil that number and advise were it should be".

Both Namdar-Zanganeh and Mr. Nuaimi, speaking one from Tehran and the other Abu Dhabi said the Organisation would make final decisions on its 14 November Ministerial meeting in the Austrian Capital, focusing on shoring up the oil prices, down by 25 percent since mid-September as the global economy has slowed down in the wake of 11 September terrorist attacks on New York and on the Pentagon in Washington.

Asked about possible quota violations by OPEC member states, Namdar-Zanganeh said that preliminary estimates indicated that quota violations have decreased in October compared with September and OPEC produces have exercised more commitment to their output quota.

Iran is thought to be over-producing by some 200,000 barrels per day according to Prudential Bache's experts.

OPEC has already cut 3.5 million bpd from world supplies this year to keep prices steady within its target range.

Usually it would simply cut production to prop up prices but OPEC has been wary of sparking a political storm by trying to force prices higher at a time when the world's major industrialized economies are heading into recession in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks on the United States.