(The group's June 8 meeting failed to reach agreement on production levels when half of the membership, led by Iran, opposed a Saudi proposal for a 1.5 million b/d increase based on total actual production for all 12 members. The previous agreement, which had set a target production level for 11 members but not Iraq, had was already notional before the June meeting because compliance was so poor and became redundant as the meeting ended in acrimony.)

As recent OPEC history shows, the higher the volume a country shows it can produce, the higher the baseline for a cut.

There seems little likelihood that OPEC powerhouse Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies will consider the previous output target of 24.845 million b/d as a basis for any new agreement -- not least because Riyadh has pushed its own production above 9.8 million b/d and will be reluctant to acknowledge its previous allocation of slightly more than 8 million b/d as the baseline for a new quota.

It would appear that Saudi Arabia's Gulf neighbor Kuwait has already started positioning ahead of the December meeting.

On Monday, French news agency AFP quoted oil minister Mohammad al-Busairi saying Kuwait had increased its production to 2.9 million b/d and was heading towards 3 million b/d. These figures are significantly higher than the August production level of 2.57 million b/d estimated by Platts and, using secondary sources, OPEC itself. They are also significantly higher than Kuwait's 2.22 million b/d quota under the previous agreement.

"We have been producing 2.9 million bpd at least for the past 10 days. We are heading towards 3 million bpd," the minister said, quoted by AFP. "If Kuwait and Saudi Arabia had not raised their production in the past four to five months, oil prices would have been at a totally different (higher) level," he said. "We tried to contribute to the stability of oil prices by raising production but without flooding the market."

It also seems unlikely that any new output agreement will include a quota for Libya, whose production has plunged from close to 1.6 million b/d before the start of the rebellion against Moammar Qadhafi in February to just 20,000 b/d in August.

Timelines for Libya's recovery vary widely, depending on who you talk to. And while the push to restore output has already begun, the key to ramping up volumes will be the return of the international oil companies.

The International Energy Agency earlier this week said it saw Libyan production climbing an average 300,000 b/d in the fourth quarter of this year, and possibly reaching 350,000-400,000 b/d by the end of December. By the fourth quarter of next year, the IEA reckons production could rise to 1.1 million b/d.

The volume of Libyan oil reaching the market will depend on how the new government balances domestic oil requirements against revenue needs, said the IEA, which sees crude exports reaching 200,000-250,000 b/d in the fourth quarter of this year and between 650,000 and 850,000 b/d by the end of next year.

The big question is, of course, whether OPEC will need to rein in production to accommodate Libya's rising volumes and respond to any falloff in demand. And because any cuts would have to be made from some kind of baseline to appear credible, the next couple of months could see a slew of statements from OPEC ministers similar to that of Kuwait's al-Busairi.

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