OPEC May Let Price of Oil Fall Further

OPEC oil ministers said Sunday they may be willing to let oil prices fall, perhaps below $20 a barrel, if that would help them preserve their dwindling share of the market.

No formal decision had been made, but several ministers said a consensus was emerging within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries for a fundamental shift away from trying to support the widely flouted OPEC price of $28 a barrel.

“We do intend to preserve our share of the market and protect it,” Oil Minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani of Saudi Arabia told reporters as he entered an evening meeting of all 13 OPEC ministers. Some ministers said one result might be a global price war next year when a seasonal drop-off in oil demand would heighten sales competition between OPEC members and independent producers such as Britain, with its North Sea holdings.

The prevailing attitude among ministers Sunday was “we stop here” in trying to hold up prices at the cost of losing customers to non-OPEC competitors, Indonesian Oil Minister Subroto said.

“There is the feeling that OPEC is entitled to have a share of the market and not decrease the share anymore,” Subroto told reporters. Defending that share, he said, will mean “price competition.”