OPEC Plans Drastic Cut in Oil Production

(Washington Post – Steven Mufson)

Facing its biggest test in a decade, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is planning to make a major cut in oil output at a meeting in Oran, Algeria, tomorrow in an effort to stop the slide in oil prices, which have dropped by two-thirds since July.

Confronted by sputtering world oil demand, the cartel is expected to make production cuts of about 2 million barrels a day to reduce the size of world inventories and to boost prices back up to the $75-a-barrel level that Saudi King Abdullah has called reasonable. It will be the group's fourth meeting in four months as it tries to adjust to the weakening world economy.

“They are going to cut and they are going to cut big,” said Roger Diwan, a partner at PFC Energy, a Washington consulting firm. Even after substantial OPEC output cuts earlier in the fall, world oil inventories “are building much faster than people thought,” Diwan added. Oil stocks are big enough to cover 57 days of supplies, up from the five-year average of 52 days.

Reaching the $75-a-barrel price target could be a tough task, however. U.S. oil demand has been weaker than any time since the economic slowdown that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Even though retail gasoline prices have plunged to a nationwide average of $1.66 a gallon for regular, cash-strapped motorists continue to use less fuel than they did a year ago. The Energy Information Administration is forecasting a 3.4% drop in motor fuel use for 2008, and a bigger drop in oil-based motor fuel after taking rising ethanol use into account. Click here for the complete article.