By Rania El Gamal
DUBAI (Reuters) - Top OPEC oil exporter Saudi Arabia has told the producer group it will not attend talks on Monday with non-OPEC producers to discuss limiting supply, OPEC sources said, as it wants to focus on having consensus within the organization first.
The meeting was planned to discuss the contribution that producers outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will make to a proposed supply-limiting agreement. OPEC oil ministers meet on Wednesday to finalize the deal.
"There is an official letter from (Saudi Arabia) saying (it is) not attending the meeting because the ministers should agree to the cut and then present the agreement to non-OPEC countries," an OPEC source said. "This will be more effective."
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is trying to finalize a September agreement that would reduce production to between 32.5 million and 33 million barrels per day.
It aims to remove a supply glut and prop up oil prices, which at just over $48 a barrel are less than half their level of mid-2014.
The organization also wants non-OPEC producers such as Russia to curb output.
Despite extensive diplomacy since September, the OPEC side of the deal still faces setbacks from Iraq's call for it to be exempt and from Iran, which wants to increase supply because its output has been hit by sanctions.
A meeting of OPEC experts this week made some progress in how to implement the cut, but Iran and Iraq raised conditions for participating, according to sources.
"We have to solve our problems as OPEC first. We have not achieved an agreement within OPEC," a Gulf source familiar with Saudi oil thinking said on Friday.
"Before we meet with non-OPEC and ask them to participate in any action, we have to have an agreement that is credible with clear numbers and a system that the market believes."
(Additional reporting and writing by Alex Lawler; Editing by Mark Potter and Dale Hudson)