OPEC Delays New Output Cuts

CAIRO, Egypt -- OPEC held off on announcing new oil output cuts on Saturday, but its alarm over falling demand and a slumping economy potentially laid the groundwork for a big reduction when it meets again in a matter of weeks.

Chakib Khelil, Algeria's oil minister and the group's president, said the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries ministers noted "with concern the continued deterioration of the global economic situation and its impact on oil demand."

The ministers, he said in a statement, agreed to "take any additional action ... to balance oil supply and demand, and achieve market stability" during their Dec. 17 extraordinary meeting in Oran, Algeria.

The outcome of Saturday's meeting in Cairo, convened about a month after the group decided to pull 1.5 million barrels per day of oil from the market, seemed unlikely to put a floor beneath crude prices that have fallen by around 60% from their mid-July highs of $147 per barrel.

Saudi Arabia, the 13-member organization's top exporter and kingpin, broke with its usual silence about specific prices and cited $75 per barrel as a favorable target. King Abdullah, in an interview with a Kuwaiti newspaper published Saturday, said that would be a "fair price" -- a message echoed by his top oil official in Cairo.

"Eventually, if we want the marginal producer to produce and help the world supply, then we need to give them a better price," Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi said.

But it was unclear how the group -- supplier of 40% of the world's crude -- could realize that target soon, given the lack of action at Saturday's meeting.