OPEC ends Cairo meeting without new output cuts

CAIRO, Egypt — OPEC ended a hastily convened meeting in Cairo Saturday without announcing new output cuts, despite the steep drop in crude prices and the threat it poses to member governments' national budgets.

The oil producing group's president, Chakib Khelil, said OPEC is concerned about the weakening world economy and its impact on oil prices. The group, however, will likely wait until a meeting in Algeria on Dec. 17 to decide whether to cut additional crude supplies from the market.

Khelil said oil ministers of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries "agreed to take any additional action on 17th of December to balance oil supply and demand and achieve market stability."

His comments came after the group convened what it called a consultative meeting in Cairo to take stock of market situations and to asses whether members were complying with a 1.5 million barrel per day output cut announced Oct. 24 in Vienna, Austria.

Khelil said preliminary market data indicated members were complying with the earlier cuts.

Saudi Arabia's king said in an interview published Saturday in a Kuwaiti newspaper that the price of oil should be $75 a barrel, much higher than it is now, but the conclusion of the Cairo meeting with no announcement on output indicated no measures would likely be taken until OPEC meets again next month.

Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi went into Saturday's meeting saying OPEC would "do what needs to be done" to shore up falling oil prices when the group meets in Algeria, but for now it was "too early."

Naimi, whose country is the world's largest oil producer, said the bloc needs to wait until the Algeria meeting to assess the impact of earlier production cuts.

The cut announced in Vienna has so far failed to stop the price drop, and the cartel abruptly convened the Cairo gathering on the sidelines of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries' meeting.

The price of crude stood at about $147 a barrel in mid-July. On Friday, the U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude for January delivery was trading at about $54 per barrel.

The price drop and the wider financial meltdown threatens to cut deeply into OPEC member states' government budgets.

"We believe the fair price for oil is $75 a barrel," Saudi King Abdullah was quoted as saying in Saturday's edition of the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Seyassah. He did not say how the price could be raised.

The king was echoed by Qatar's Oil Minister Abdullah Bin Hamad al-Attiya, who told the Arab news channel Al-Arabiya that prices needed to rise to guarantee investment in the oil sector.