OPEC pursues oil output decision in informal talks

VIENNA, Austria -- OPEC delegates broke off informal talks Wednesday without agreeing whether the oil producers' cartel should adjust output, highlighting their dilemma of trying to reverse a slide in crude prices without worsening the global economic slowdown.

Representatives of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries delayed a formal meeting on the group's production and pricing policy until Thursday morning.

"No agreement yet," OPEC president Chakib Khelil said as he left the hotel where the two-hour talks took place.

However, OPEC delegates were meeting late Wednesday with officials from eight non-OPEC oil producing countries, including Mexico, Russia and Angola, at OPEC's headquarters in Vienna, Austria. An OPEC spokesman said it was possible the cartel might announce a decision about its production quotas in the evening.

Indications were strong that the cartel would decide to leave its existing levels of oil production unchanged.

Khelil had said as much Tuesday, and after the end of Wednesday's informal talks, Venezuelan Oil Minister Alvaro Silva and Libya's oil minister Ahmed Abdul Karim Ahmed both said OPEC was unlikely to change production levels this week.

The delay indicates the difficulty OPEC members face in trying to forge a consensus amid the intense economic and political uncertainty prevailing since the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States.

Oil prices have plunged since the attacks, but OPEC's 11 members are constrained from cutting output to bolster prices because such a step could tip the fragile world economy decisively into recession.

OPEC is further limited by some key members' reluctance to antagonize the United States, the No. 1 importer of OPEC crude, as it leads a military alliance against terrorism.

"OPEC's basic problem is they can't do anything," said Raad Alkadiri, an energy analyst with The Petroleum Finance Co., a Washington-based consultancy.

OPEC's official output is 23.2 million barrels a day. The group has cut back its official production three times this year already, most recently by 1 million barrels a day Sept. 1.