LONDON (Bloomberg) – Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which together account for a third of OPEC's output, said members are doing enough to expand oil production capacity even as four states in the exporters group have failed to meet their quotas since January.

Saudi Oil minister Ali al-Naimi said oil producers should study future demand forecasts before boosting output capacity beyond what's already planned. “Global growth may not continue at this level for many years,'' he said in a speech today at an oil conference in Amman, Jordan.

The kingdom opened its Haradh expansion facility on March 22 which increased Saudi's crude output capacity by 2.7 percent to 11.3 million barrels a day. The facility is the latest addition in a five-year, $14 billion program to boost the country's production capacity almost 14 percent to 12.5 million barrels a day in 2009.

The International Energy Agency last week lowered its estimate for 2006 crude demand by 200,000 barrels a day to 84.83 million barrels a day, reducing this year's growth to 1.5 percent. OPEC pumped 170,000 more barrels a day in April, increasing its output to 30.04 million barrels a day, the IEA said.

Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria and Indonesia, which together account for almost 40 percent of OPEC's target output ceiling, fell short of meeting their daily quotas by 1.55 million barrels last month, according to Bloomberg data.

Venezuela, OPEC's third largest oil producer, and Indonesia have seen their output capacities decline 20 percent this decade.

No foreign companies

The OPEC President Edmund Daukoru last month urged his Persian Gulf colleagues to invest more in raising their production capacities.

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which together hold about 35 percent of the world's oil reserves, don't allow international companies to explore for oil or develop known fields in their respective countries. The United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar allow companies such as Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp. to hold minority stakes in oil field development projects.

The Kuwaiti government has for a decade failed to secure agreement with its parliament to allow international oil companies into the country to expand its production capacity.

Oil producers will struggle to boost capacity because of shortages of rigs and rising costs for building facilities, Claude Mandil said today in Amman. “I am afraid that in the next two or three years capacity will only increase at the same pace as demand, with no increase in spare capacity,'' Mandil said.

Crude oil in New York closed at a record $75.17 a barrel on April 21, amid concern supplies out of Iran may be disrupted over its nuclear program standoff with the U.S. The price closed at $72.04 a barrel on Friday.

100 million barrels

Saudi's al-Naimi said world oil demand is growing by “about 4 percent a year,'' and added, that it may reach “100 million barrels a day by 2015.''

The expected demand for OPEC's crude oil will average 28.1 million barrels a day during the second quarter of this year, and 29.2 million barrels a day for all of 2006, according to IEA calculations based on its estimates of world demand and non-OPEC oil supply.

The IEA does not directly forecast OPEC supply in coming months, just the expected demand for such oil.

OPEC states “will create huge capacity in just three or four years and it will lower prices, but my concern is that still we don't see any guarantee that someone will use this spare capacity,'' Qatar's Oil Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah said in an interview in Jordan today.

Iran, OPEC's second-largest oil producer, has seen its production capacity decline over the last 30 years from a peak of 6 million barrels a day in the mid-1970s to about 4 million today.