Ministers readying for their 1200 GMT conference said they would not hesitate to endorse existing curbs on output, agreed last March for a year after prices slumped to the lowest level in a generation.

Iran's oil minister Bijan Zanganeh said a meeting of OPEC's three-man market monitoring committee on Tuesday had urged tight compliance with the 4.3 million barrel-a-day curbs until they expire in April.

OPEC has shown rare resolve in implementing the cuts, removing some five per cent of its oil from the international market and doubling the value of benchmark North Sea Brent blend crude to $22.70 a barrel. Intent on restoring shrivelled revenues, Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries ministers seem content to allow prices to move higher than some think is good for the cartel.

``We will keep the agreement until March whatever theconsequences,'' said Qatari oil minister Abdullah al-Attiyah on Tuesday.

Market observers say they are projecting a large supply shortfall during the winter months which could push prices to $25 or more, stoking inflationary pressures in the West.

Signs of consumer agitation about the extent of price rises have already started to emerge.

New York senator Charles Schumer on Tuesday called on US energy secretary Bill Richardson to release crude from the country's strategic petroleum reserve to force world prices lower.

``The United States can and should defend itself from what amounts to nothing less than economic warfare,'' Schumer said in a letter.

Some OPEC watchers say that, longer term, high prices could backfire on the group by stunting demand growth and nurturing high-cost non-OPEC developments.

``OPEC tends to react to events rather than shape them,'' said former Saudi oil minister Zaki Yamani on Tuesday. ``It was late in curbing production in 1998 and it looks like being late once again inraising production,'' he told a conference in Washington.

Ministers on Wednesday also must wrestle with the divisive issue of who to elect as the successor to Rilwanu Lukman as next OPEC secretary-general.

Iran said on Tuesday it had agreed with Saudi Arabia that they propose to OPEC their nominees serve consecutive three-year terms. Riyadh has nominated its governor to OPEC Sulaiman al-Herbish. The Saudi camp has since declined comment.

The Iranian candidate, its OPEC governor Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, said he was confident Iraq would not block Tehran's nomination.

Iraq's own nominee Abdul Amir al-Anbari, a former envoy to the United Nations, appears the best qualified of the three.

Alternatively Lukman may be asked to stay in the job for six months or an acting secretary-general could be elected to care take.