The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will hold a meeting in Cairo on Nov. 29 to discuss the situation in the international oil market, Algerian news agency APS reported.
Chakib Khelil, OPEC's current rotating president, who is also the Algerian Minister of Energy and Mines, told reporters here that the meeting could take place on the sidelines of the meeting of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), also scheduled to take place in the Egyptian capital on Nov. 29.
Some OPEC member countries, such as Algeria, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, are also members of OAPEC.
OPEC is scheduled to hold a special ministerial-level meeting in the western Algerian town of Oran on Dec. 17 to discuss the prospects of international oil markets in the first half of 2009. The meeting in Cairo is seen as preparation for it.
In an attempt to stabilize the falling oil prices, OPEC decided on Oct. 24 to slash daily oil output by 1.5 million barrels from Nov. 1. But the measure has yet to effectively stop the slide in prices.
The organization said Thursday it will announce further cuts in oil output at the end of this month if global oil prices continued to fall, APS reported.
The OPEC weekly price, which has continued to drop after reaching record highs in July this year, slid to 56.83 U.S. dollars per barrel last week.
(Xinhua News Agency November 14, 2008)
