By Margaret McQuaile on December 11, 2009 12:59 PM

OPEC ministers are preparing to travel to their December 22 meeting in Angola where, barring any big surprises, they are set to rubber stamp for the fourth time this year their current output agreement.

That pact, agreed late last year, sets target output for the 11 members bound by quotas at 24.845 million b/d, which represents a cut of 4.2 million b/d from estimated September 2008 production of 29.045 million b/d.

Needless to say, OPEC has not cut anything like the full 4.2 million b/d. It made a good stab at it initially, reducing output from the agreed baseline by as much as 3.44 million b/d in March this year. But after that, as oil prices firmed, OPEC volumes climbed. And climbed.

The latest monthly Platts survey of OPEC and oil industry officials and analysts estimates OPEC-11 output at 26.49 million b/d in November, 90,000 b/d more than estimated October volumes and widening further the gap between official target output and actual output. That was as little as 765,000 b/d in March, according to Platts estimates. Now it is 1.65 million b/d.

The International Energy Agency sees an even bigger gap of 1.77 million b/d between target and actual output, while the US Department of Energy's statistics arm, the Energy Information Administration, sees the gap at more than 2.1 million b/d.

OPEC has often in the past dealt with overproduction simply by legitimizing it. In other words, by raising official quotas and ceilings.

But key OPEC ministers, including Ali Naimi of OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia, have pretty much ruled out any change in official targets in Angola, despite the extent of the overproduction.

The Platts estimate of total OPEC production in November, meanwhile, is within the IEA's 29 million b/d forecast of the "call" on OPEC crude next year. Having downgraded the prospects for 2010 supply from independent producers, the IEA has raised its previous projection of demand for OPEC oil by 500,000 b/d.