Texaco cut the price of a key grade of crude oil.

Smaller firms had already dropped the price they will pay for West Texas Intermediate crude to $28 from $29, but Texaco became the first major oil company to do so. Analysts said the move could make it more difficult for OPEC to defend its official $29-per-barrel price. Texaco is the only member of Arabian American Oil Co.--a consortium of four U.S. oil firms producing oil in Saudi Arabia--to go to a $28 level.