Libya Orders Oil Cuts of 270K Barrels Per Day

"It seems that we are being fed each day with another OPEC country sending out a PR piece about how they are enforcing the cuts," observed analyst Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix in Switzerland.

The push to comply with the December decision reflects efforts by the group to put a floor under the plummeting prices, and bring them more in line with the $75 per barrel figure that Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah indicated would be fair for both consumers and producers.

Libya's cut is the latest such effort.

Under the October cut, which was to be fully implemented by December, Libya's quota was 1.62 million barrels per day, said Gerber, adding that the group had been working hard to limit their output.

According to Gerber's figures -- which come from carefully monitoring tanker shipments and do not include oil in storage -- OPEC had already cut output by 1.56 million barrels per day by the end of November, and has slashed another 320,000 barrels per day in December.

Many officials at the Vienna-based organization were unavailable for comment because of the New Year holiday.

The OPEC 11 -- minus Indonesia and Iraq, which are not bound by quotas -- are currently producing 27.1 million barrels per day, he said, about 200,000 barrels per day below the target they set in their October meeting in Vienna.

Iraq's oil minister, meanwhile, said Monday that the war-ravaged country averaged exports of about 1.85 million barrels per day in December, nearly 90,000 barrels a day more than the previous month.