(Reuters) - The world's biggest oil producers may consider "other steps" to eliminate a persistent oversupply in global markets if a provisional deal to freeze current output holds firm for several months, the top official of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said on Monday.
Speaking to the CERAWeek conference in Houston, OPEC Secretary-General Abdullah al-Badri also offered a blunt assessment of when the current "nasty" slump in the oil cycle might turn, observing that U.S. shale oil producers would quickly start drilling again if prices, currently around $30 a barrel, recovered to $60.
"I don't know how we are going to live together," he said of the once thriving shale developments.
The rout in prices of more than 70 percent in 20 months, is not the same as oil's previous boom-bust cycles, he said.
"If prices will go up in 2017 or 2018, the price rally will be capped by U.S. shale oil. That's what is different this time."
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Badri reiterated his readiness for OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers to work together to eliminate a global glut that has knocked prices to their lowest in over a decade, saying that the tentative pact to freeze output reached last week between Saudi Arabia, Russia and other producers was just a start.
"The first step is to freeze the production. Maybe if this is successful we can take other steps in the future."
Iran, the major obstacle to the deal as it has pledged to increase output sharply since sanctions were lifted last month, has yet to formally sign on to the agreement, leaving its implementation uncertain.
Badri said the group would want to wait three to four months to see if the deal was holding.
Addressing a room filled with hundreds of global oil executives, Badri also said he was willing to speak with U.S. officials about the collapse in oil prices.
He did not say what action, if any, he expected from U.S. producers.
The current oil price slump has been longer and deeper than most observers anticipated, but already some officials are growing concerned that the deep cuts in capital spending - for two years in a row - risk leaving the world short of crude oil several years down the road.
"This is a seed for a very high price in the future," Badri said.
(Reporting by CERAWeek Team; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Marguerita Choy)
