OPEC offers conditions for making cut in oil output

VIENNA, Austria -- OPEC has agreed to reduce its daily production target for oil by 1.5 million barrels, or 6 percent, but only if non-OPEC producers share the burden by making a deep cut of their own, the cartel announced Wednesday.

Delegates of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said they were asking oil producing countries outside the cartel to decrease output by 500,000 barrels, for a combined cut of 2 million barrels a day aimed at halting the recent slide in oil prices. The cuts are to take effect Jan. 1.

Confronted with a sharp drop in global demand for crude, OPEC members are eager to tighten their taps and have called on major non-OPEC producers such as Mexico and Norway to do the same. Despite pleas and veiled threats of a price war, however, Russia is the only major non-OPEC producer so far to publicly declare its willingness to oblige.

"The situation has deteriorated beyond the control of OPEC. It is not an issue of whether 'we want' or 'we don't want.' The issue is whether 'we can' or 'we cannot,"' Kuwaiti oil minister Adel al-Sabeeh said at OPEC's headquarters in Vienna.

Al-Sabeeh stressed OPEC would not trim production on its own. "Without a substantial contribution from non-OPEC countries, OPEC cannot maintain the prices," he said.

"Everybody would be the loser," said Qatar's oil minister, Abdullah Bin Hamad Al Attiyah. "If it is just OPEC, then in my opinion it would be a disaster."

OPEC president Chakib Khelil insisted the group would not follow through with its planned cuts unless non-OPEC producers shouldered some of the responsibility.

"I don't think this is beyond the capacity of non-OPEC countries to do," Khelil told reporters after the delegates ended their formal talks.

He noted that OPEC has curtailed its output by 3.5 million barrels a day this year without a meaningful contribution from other producers.