Gulf oil ministers on Tuesday played down the slide in oil prices below $70 a barrel and said Opec had no plans to call an emergency meeting to discuss supply policy.

US crude slipped to around $68 on Tuesday and has fallen nearly $20 in three weeks on growing fears that Europe's debt crisis would derail the global economic recovery.

'Not yet, so what?' Kuwait's Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmad al-Abdullah al Sabah told reporters at the country's parliament when asked if he was worried about the price drop.

He called on fellow Opec members to stick more closely to the group's output targets.

'We ask for more compliance, that's all,' Sheikh Ahmad said.

United Arab Emirates Oil Minister Mohammed al-Hamli also downplayed the recent fall.

'We have had lower prices many many times before...the price reflects market conditions,' Hamli told reporters on the sidelines of an industry event in Qatar's capital city on Tuesday.

Both Sheikh Ahmad and Hamli said Opec had no plans to meet before its next scheduled gathering in October.

Sheikh Ahmad said earlier in May that $65 would ring alarm bells for Opec.

Algeria's oil minister has also said that a price in the $60s would be uncomfortable for Opec members.

Most estimates suggest production from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has been rising since early 2009 as higher oil prices have encouraged members to relax adherence to existing output curbs.

Opec's compliance with the 4.2 million bpd of pledged cutbacks has fallen to around 51 per cent, according to Reuters estimates. The producer group, supplier of more than a third of the world's oil, has kept oil supply targets steady since late 2008.-Reuters