Kuwait is "very worried" about the 14 percent decline in prices so far this month, but its oil minister, Sheik Ahmed Fahd al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, joined several other OPEC delegates in calling for the group to leave output unchanged for now.
Al-Sabah said he believed Iraq would be allowed to attend Wednesday's formal meeting as a full member because Venezuela was the only one demurring.
Wednesday's OPEC meeting is at the group's Vienna headquarters.
OPEC secretary-general Alvaro Silva predicted that OPEC, which supplies about a third of the world's crude, would hold its output ceiling steady at 25.4 million barrels a day for the rest of the year. Some members, including Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, have expressed a similar view.
"I think we have to continue with the same production that we have now" and monitor the oil market closely in coming months, al-Sabah said upon his arrival at a hotel in the Austrian capital. December would be "a good time" to reassess supply and demand for crude, he said.
United Arab Emirates' Oil Minister Obaid Al-Nasseri, speaking earlier, said there appeared to be "no big reason" for OPEC to adjust its output at this meeting.
Earlier fears that Iraq might quickly restore its prewar output and glut the market with crude have all but disappeared. Sabotage of Iraq's oil pipelines continues to crimp its exports, and with Iraq's recovery taking much longer than expected, several OPEC members have said the group should continue pumping at current levels leading into the peak winter heating oil season.
Given the large number of oil ministers who have already stated a preference for not changing output, a decision by OPEC to do anything different would be "irresponsible," said Yasser Elguindi of Medley Global Advisors, a New York-based consultancy. "It would take something dramatic at this point for them to change their position, and the market would not appreciate it," Elguindi said.
OPEC's benchmark crude price stood at $24.82, the lowest since May 8. Despite falling, prices remain within OPEC's target $22-$28 price range.
Iraq hasn't attended an OPEC meeting since Saddam's defeat. It hasn't participated in OPEC quota agreements since the United Nations imposed sanctions in 1990 to punish Baghdad for invading Kuwait. ***
Bahr al-Ulum, from the new government formed after Saddam Hussein was toppled by US-led forces in April, arrived Tuesday in Vienna at the invitation of the OPEC president, who is also Qatar's energy minister.
But Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez was still insisting Tuesday that the Iraqi government should be recognized internationally before being allowed to sit as a full member at a meeting of the cartel.
In an effort to avert an embarrassing snub to Iraq, the cartel held a late-night meeting Tuesday to try to reach an agreement over how the country, one of OPEC's founding members, should be represented at the conference.
Ramirez later confirmed that Venezuela would no longer oppose Iraq's sitting as a full member.***