OPEC says action needed to avoid huge oil glut

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The world faces a huge oversupply of oil next year should production continue at current rates, OPEC's secretary general said on Tuesday, as his organization prepares for an emergency meeting to discuss output cuts.

Abdullah al-Badri, arriving on a two-day visit to Moscow, said he would welcome closer co-operation with Russia -- the largest oil producer outside OPEC -- but that Kremlin officials and other observers would not attend Friday's meeting in Vienna.

"If things stay as they are, there will be a huge excess of supply in 2009," Badri told a news conference a few hours after arriving in the Russian capital.

He declined to comment on whether OPEC member states would agree to cut output, as is widely expected, but said the world would have too much oil at the end of this year and in the first two quarters of 2009.

Oil has halved in value since peaking at $147.27 in July, reviving bad memories among the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries of the 1998 price collapse when oil fell to less than $10 per barrel.

Some members of the group, which pumps about 40 percent of the world's oil, are backing an output cut of 3 million barrels per day over time, starting with a cut of 1 million bpd. Others have said a token reduction would be more appropriate.

OPEC President Chakib Khelil has called for non-OPEC countries such as Russia, Norway and Mexico to contribute to production cuts.

But Badri, who has cut his scheduled visit to Moscow by two days in order to attend Friday's emergency session, said any meetings with Russian officials would simply involve an exchange of information.

"Russia is interested at what we're doing at OPEC," he said.

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Russia sent a high-level delegation to OPEC's last meeting in September, where influential Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said "broad co-operation with OPEC" was a priority.

"No observers will attend the emergency meeting this Friday, including Russia," Badri said.

In a interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said Russia would aim for constructive dialogue with OPEC but keep its policies independent.

Shmatko said on Monday that Badri could meet with top Russian officials during his visit. The OPEC official declined to say who he might meet.

Badri also launched an attack on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and unnamed officials in the United States for creating the global financial crisis, and said OPEC was powerless to stop its effects around the world.

"We don't have the ability to bail out the financial crisis created by Mr. Brown and others in the United States," he said. "Everybody will feel the heat one way or another of the financial crisis. The Chinese are the least likely to be affected."

(Writing by Robin Paxton; Editing by Christian Wiessner)