OPEC has promised to make another deep oil supply cut at its meeting on Wednesday, hoping that will be enough to fight the worst fuel demand slump in a generation and rescue prices.
Oil edged up above $45 a barrel on Tuesday on the prospect of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries removing up to two million barrels of oil from daily supply.
But global recession has battered demand and lopped more than $100 off prices since July.
"We want a very, very strong decision," Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez told reporters on his arrival.
When asked what scale of cut he would support, Ramirez replied: "Between one and two million."
Venezuela and Iran are dependent on higher prices to fund ambitious domestic programmes and even Gulf producers need a price of around $50.
Iran also wants a substantial output reduction.
"A cut of 1.5 to 2 million barrels a day of OPEC's oil can restore stability to the oil market and can keep its price at a suitable level," said Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari.
Two million barrels per day (bpd) would be the biggest volume ever removed by the group that pumps more than a third of the world's oil.
OPEC's Gulf producers are also prepared to make a big supply cut to prevent a massive build up of fuel stocks.
They want to push oil back towards $75 a barrel — the "fair" price identified by top exporter Saudi Arabia last month.
Saudi Arabia had yet to make public comment on its position, but OPEC President Chakib Khelil said on Monday that Riyadh had already cut back in anticipation of further supply curbs.
Reuters reported last week that Saudi Arabia's biggest customers would receive less oil in January — implying the kingdom had already factored in another OPEC reduction.
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OPEC has already cut a combined two million barrels daily, 7.3 percent of its output at two previous meetings.
A slump in demand has lifted inventories in OECD industrialised nations to the equivalent of nearly 57 days of forward demand — a measure OPEC closely monitors — well above the five-year average.
Global oil consumption was set to shrink this year and next, the first time since the 1980s demand will contract for two years running, according to the U.S. government.
Leading banks have predicted oil could sink to $30 or below early next year, and some in OPEC concede Riyadh's "fair" $75 may be out of reach at least until the end of next year.
OPEC members outside the Gulf agree with the Saudi view on price, which analysts said was broadly in line with the cost of marginal production in new, higher cost frontiers such as Canada's oil sands.
"In terms of producers, we could talk of a price of $70 to $75 per barrel of oil. That is the balance we are aiming for," said Angola's Oil Minister Botelho de Vasconcelos.
OPEC was also hoping for support from exporters outside the group but in the past, any collaboration has been unconvincing. Non-OPEC output is in any case stagnating because of ageing fields and underinvestment.
Russia, the biggest non-OPEC exporter, was sending its energy minister and its deputy prime minister to the Oran meeting.
In 2001 OPEC cut by 5 million bpd in four stages, 19 percent of its supply, laying the foundation for a six-year boom in oil prices that culminated this summer in a record $147.27 a barrel.
OPEC's biggest cut by volume so far was in April 1999 when it reduced production by 1.716 million bpd, according to Reuters data.
