MILAN, Feb 25: Opec countries should maintain oil output at current levels despite a surplus of supply but may trim production later, Opec President Edmund Daukoru said in an interview with an Italian newspaper published on Saturday.

There is a 2.5 million barrels per day surplus of supply on the market. However, the preferred solution would be to maintain production at the current levels. Then the trend would be to correct production with cuts, Daukoru told financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore.

Opec, provider of over a third of the world’s oil, decided last month to keep its production limit at 28 million barrels per day (bpd) — near a 25-year high.

Daukoru said the stockpiles in oil consumer countries were at “more than comfortable” levels and added he saw no risk of a total halt of production in any of the Opec countries despite recent attacks in Saudi Arabia and Nigeria.

Oil jumped more than $2 on Friday after news of a suicide bomb attack at the huge Abqaiq oil facility in Saudi Arabia, which triggered worries about supply from the world’s top crude producer.

Oil prices were also pushed up by fears of deeper disruptions to oil exports from Nigeria — which holds the OPEC presidency — were oil networks have come under attacks from militants.

Royal Dutch Shell had been forced to cut output by 455,000 barrels a day, shutting in a fifth of the country’s exports. Militants holding foreign oil workers hostage say they will continue attacks in the next few days.

Daukoru, who is Nigerian Minister of State for Petroleum, said Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and many other Opec countries have alternative oil facilities which are unlikely to come under a single, simultaneous attack.

He said his country would stick to its targets of increasing daily output capacity to 3 million bpd by June this year and to 4 million bpd by the end of 2007.

Nigeria produced 2.4 million bpd in 2005.

Daukoru also said he supported an idea that oil prices should be pegged to currencies other than the US dollar but added “it is a very complex matter to realise”.—Reuters