By SPENCER SWARTZ

VIENNA—Saudi Arabia said Tuesday that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries won't let global oil markets get too tight, the first indication from the world's biggest crude exporter that it may be getting uneasy with oil prices recently trading over $80 a barrel.

"We will never allow it [the oil market] to get to the point where it puts too much pressure on prices," Saudi Arabia Oil Minister Ali Naimi told journalists here ahead of OPEC's production policy meeting Wednesday.

Associated Press

Ali Naimi

He didn't specify exactly what that point would be, but as as OPEC's leading member and the group's moderate voice that keeps OPEC's more hawkish nations in check, Saudi Arabia sits on a mountain of spare production capacity of over four million barrels a day that it could begin to discharge into world markets to quell runaway prices.

The kingdom has helped rally other OPEC states in the past year around the notion—which isn't formal OPEC policy—of a preferred price level of between $70 and $80 a barrel.

Until recent days, prices have traded safely above that range, leading some economists to question whether higher energy costs might pinch global economic recovery.

Mr. Naimi said healthy demand in places like China, Saudi Arabia's most important growth market, was helping to prune the overhang in unused oil inventory globally.

"China is growing at over 8%...Things are tightening," Mr. Naimi said, adding that he was nonetheless very content with the state of the world oil market.

Forward demand cover in developed nations, a measure of the health of supply in the world's biggest oil consuming nations such as the U.S., had dropped from around 62 days to around 58 days currently, Mr. Naimi said. The norm seen in recent years is around 53-55 days.

At the same time, Mr. Naimi said it was unclear to him whether OPEC will need to formally increase its production target this year, although this sentiment could be driven by the fact OPEC states are already producing roughly two million barrels a day above their formal target set in December 2008 during the depth of the recession.

"We'll see what happens in the third and fourth quarters" whether economic activity continues to rise and if there is a need for a formal change to OPEC's output target, Mr. Naimi said.

OPEC ministers arriving here for Wednesday's meeting are in agreement for the 12-nation group, which provides about 40% of the 86 million barrels burned globally daily, to keep its production target unchanged.

Saudi Arabia is pumping around 8.15 million to 8.2 million barrels a day, at least 100,000 barrels a day above its formal OPEC production target, according to industry surveys.

That level of over production—which is helping keep global oil supply ample—is minor by OPEC standards. Other OPEC members, like Iran, are producing 300,000-400,000 barrels a day above their OPEC targets.

Ministers are calling for better implementation of past OPEC production cuts agreements, but most analysts expect those calls to go unheeded as long as oil trades around current price levels, which are a boon to OPEC member-state coffers.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange Tuesday, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in April traded down around 25 cents at $79.55 a barrel at 0950 GMT after dipping under $80 Monday.

Write to Spencer Swartz at spencer.swartz@dowjones.com