The informal meeting was officially convened to discuss demand in the burgeoning Asian market, Mandil said, but is also expected to cover the prospect of OPEC increasing its output.

"As we said in our monthly oil market report, we do not see how the market can be balanced if there is not an increase in OPEC output, probably before the summer," said Mandil, speaking at the IEA ministerial meeting here.

"If it is not balanced stocks will go down, at a time when they are not extremely high and we need them. That is a problem we will discuss with OPEC again, starting tomorrow."

OPEC said this morning in its monthly report that crude stocks were more than adequate to meet expected demand. The cartel also failed to respond to recent calls from the IEA for it to increase output before its next meeting.

Mandil warned earlier this month a supply shortage was impacting prices and required producers to hike output.

PIN/FORBES.COM