CAIRO (AFP) – OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem El-Badri said on Friday that the oil market was “over-supplied,” on the eve of a key meeting that could see the cartel slash output.

“The market is over-supplied,” El-Badri said ahead of the OPEC meeting which will be held on Saturday in Cairo.

The remark appeared to suggest that the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countris — which pumps 40 percent of the world’s crude oil — could cut crude production at the consultative meeting in the Egyptian capital.

OPEC member nations have watched their revenues slide this year as oil prices slumped from record highs above 147 dollars in barrel July to around 50 dollars.

Ministers agreed only last month at a meeting in Vienna to reduce production by 1.5 million barrels a day but prices only tumbled further.

Last week, prices sank below 50 dollars to levels last seen in early 2005 on growing concern that a global recession could ravage demand for energy, traders said.

On Friday, light sweet crude for delivery in January was down 1.39 dollars to 53.05 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange while on London’s InterContinental Exchange, Brent North Sea crude for January dropped 71 cents to 52.42 dollars.