Commodities : Thursday, March 20, 1986 : Oil Futures Drop Lower

Oil futures prices stumbled lower, reflecting a growing pessimism that OPEC nations meeting in Geneva can agree to cut worldwide production.

Most heating oil and gasoline contracts were more than 1 cent a gallon lower and crude oil was down 50 cents a barrel or more on all deliveries at the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries met in Geneva with little sign of coming any closer to developing production controls that could reverse the dramatic price collapse since November.

“The more the meeting drags on, the more traders are becoming skeptical” that anything can be accomplished, said Andrew Lebow, an analyst in New York with Shearson Lehman Bros.

“This doesn’t mean they cannot come to an agreement,” he said. “I think there is some optimism left in the (futures) market, but traders are growing tired of no substantive results.”

Another analyst, Peter Beutel, with Rudolf Wolff Energy in New York, said traders at the Merc seemed to be unable to focus on anything but the Geneva meeting.