Opec Secretary General Abdullah Al-Badri hopes the oil producer group will trim output towards its output target of 30 million barrels per day (bpd) in coming months, industry newsletter Gulf Oil Review quoted him as saying.

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has been exceeding its target all year, pumping almost 31.2 million bpd in July according to a Reuters survey. Still, production has fallen since it reached 31.75 million bpd in April.

"Our member-countries understand what their production levels should be. In the months ahead, I hope we can continue to move back towards the 30 million bpd level," Badri said in an interview with Gulf Oil Review.

Opec has not set individual production quotas for the 12 members bound by the 30 million bpd target, a thorny subject it has avoided tackling at its meetings in recent years.

Badri gave no timeframe in the interview when asked how long Opec would be able to operate without a formal quota system.

He reiterated that the organization, which pumps more than a third of the world's oil, is continuing to invest in new supply capacity to meet growth in demand.

Opec members are on course to bring on stream a net 7 million bpd of oil capacity in the next four years, Badri said.

The group's spare production capacity, he said, will stabilize at around 8 million bpd "in the near term." – Reuters