RIYADH, Sept 4: With chatter and confusion all around about the ability of the oil producers in meeting the global energy needs - in the medium- to long-term - consumers are scrambling to ensure security of supplies.

According to the Paris-based French Oil Institute (IFP), the Opec's surplus (spare capacity) fell to about one billion barrels a day in the spring of 2004, from 4.6 billion barrels a day in 2002. This is a crude reality, many argue and not wrongly so.

While the available spare capacity is running low, the International Energy Agency (IEA), set up by the industrialized countries some 30 years back in the immediate aftermath of the 1973 oil price rise, predicts that the global oil demand will rise by another 1.8m barrels a day and touch the 84m barrels a day mark the next year - 2005. The market is tight, production and infrastructure capacity is less than desired, and uncertainties continue to weigh on the market, the agency said. The markets are thus being pressed from both sides, supply and demand, some analysts feel. This is indeed a two pronged attack on the nervy crude markets.

Some of the new statistics put forward in the market are claiming that oil production in 18 producing countries has passed its peak and is declining faster than previously thought: At about 1.14 million barrels a day.

The British trade journal Petroleum Review has reviewed the 2003 Statistical Review of World Energy, put together by British Petroleum, to look for signs of depletion.

Its study claims that a large group of producer countries are now in decline - putting even more pressure on those countries that have spare production capacity.

The first country to start to decline was the US. The UK was also not far behind. The UK expanded production each year until 1999, experts confirm. "Since then it has gone down every year by five per cent, then six per cent then eight per cent and this year, 2004, it looks set to be higher. This is even with the best technologies and techniques available."

The country with the biggest rate of decline is Gabon. The impoverished West African state experienced an 18 per cent drop in production year on year.

Of course these are the most obvious examples of depletion. According to some other reports some of the Gulf oil producers, such as the Kuwait are already producing at their maximum.

"As well as the 18 in decline there are many others who have no further room to expand production by any significant amount. Mexico has some problems with expanding any further and they do not appear to have invested in any new exploration whilst China's figures claim they are still just increasing capacity. Yet at the same time even they have admitted their two main fields are in decline."

There are four oil fields in the world which produce over one million barrels per day. The Ghawar oilfield of Saudi Arabia is the biggest of all these, producing roughly 4.5 to five million barrels a day. Besides, Cantrell in Mexico produces two million barrels per day, Burgan in Kuwait produces one million barrels per day and DA Qing in China produces one million barrels a day.

In recent months people like Simmons & Co have raised questions about Ghawar's capacity to continue producing at this level. The field was brought on line in 1951. By 1981 it was producing 5.7m bpd. Its production was restricted during the 1980s. However, with the addition of two areas in the southern part of Ghawar, Hawiyah and Haradh, the production went back above five million barrels per day. In 2001, it was producing around 4.5m bpd. According to press estimates some 3400 wells have been drilled into this gigantic reservoir.

Despite denials, such question marks have generated uneasiness in the market, making it still jittery.

The scramble for oil thus continues, all around. As soon as the US eased sanctions on dealings with Libya, US majors Chevron Texaco and ExxonMobil have expressed renewed interest in the Libyan concessions. Libya's National Oil Corporation recently put 15 onshore and offshore areas on the auction block.

In the meantime, the Russians are also out to assure their buyers that, despite the ongoing Yukos saga, they would continue to play their role in the energy markets. President Putin himself assured the US President Bush on that account, during a 16-minute telephone call, it was reported last week.

Similarly, Russia has also assured China, the world s second largest crude consumer, that there will be no disruptions in Russian oil supplies to China. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov assured China that there were no grounds to anticipate any emergency; the supplies will be stable.

In order to ensure continuous flow of supplies from Russia, Chinese officials have also indicated their readiness to provide a $3-billion loan to Yukos, so as to meet the immediate cash flow needs of the Russian oil major, in exchange for sustained future oil deliveries, the Russian daily Izvestia reported.

Yukos has a monopoly on providing Russian oil to China. It has a 6-9 per cent share in China's imports. The interest of Chinese companies in Russian oil is so high that they are ready to fund rail transit for it across Russia, the newspaper reported.

India was also expected to raise the issue of Opec countries charging a premium on crude oil it sells to developing countries at the oil cartel's ministerial meeting.