Worsening euro zone debt crisis would further reduce the region’s oil demand and could impact consumption in emerging economies that are driving the increase in global fuel use, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), said on Monday.

In a monthly report, OPEC trimmed its forecasts for world oil demand growth in 2012 by 10,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 1.06 million bpd.

OPEC said oil demand in European members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was expected to fall by 160,000 bpd in 2012 and there was a risk the euro-zone economy could contract this year.

“If the situation were to worsen, the effect on the oil market could be seen not only through a further decline in oil demand in Europe but also with spillover effects on oil demand in the emerging economies, amid an adequately supplied market,” OPEC said.

OPEC, source of more than a third of the world’s oil, follows the U.S. government’s Energy Information Administration in lowering its demand outlook for 2012. The EIA last week cut its 2012 global growth forecast by 120,000 bpd.

The OPEC report added to signs the group is pumping more than the target of 30 million barrels daily it adopted at a December 14 meeting, as oil prices well above $100 a barrel provide little incentive for supply cuts.

It said that according to secondary sources, OPEC’s crude oil production rose in December to 30.82 million bpd, the highest since October 2008, largely in line with Media survey published on January 4.

Meanwhile, crude oil prices climbed from the lowest price in almost four weeks, as Iran said that a disruption to crude supplies through the Strait of Hormuz would cause a shock to markets that “no country” could manage.

Crude for February delivery rose as much as 95 cents to $99.65 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $99.42 at 2 p.m. London time.

The contract fell 0.4 per cent to $98.70 on January 13, the lowest close since December 21. There will be no floor trading in New York yesterday because of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Brent oil for February settlement was at $111.22 a barrel, up 78 cents on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The contract expires yesterday. The more actively traded March futures rose 78 cents to $111.13 a barrel.

The European benchmark contract’s premium to West Texas Intermediate futures was at $11.80, compared with a record $27.88 on October 14.

Futures rose as much as one per cent after sliding 2.8 per cent last week. Iran has threatened to shut the strait, a transit route for about a fifth of global oil trade, in response to international sanctions on its exports.

Any disruption will harm the world’s crude markets, Iran’s governor to Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said, according to the state-run Mehr news agency. Nigerian labour unions suspended protests after saying they would consider shutting down oil output in opposition to higher fuel prices.

“Supply worries in Iran and Nigeria combined with the recovering U.S. economy and demand from developing markets are driving oil prices higher,” Christopher Bellew, a senior broker at Jefferies Bache Limited in London, who predicts crude prices will rise further. “It’s only the weakness of the euro that’s stopping oil from making bigger advances.”