With oil prices in retreat, OPEC struggles to maintain unity

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Over the summer, the OPEC cartel couldn’t prevent oil prices from surging to record levels even when its members pumped full out. Now, the producers seem equally unable to stop prices from collapsing as the global economy cools down.

Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries left an informal meeting in Cairo this weekend without an agreement to reduce production, but with rising doubts about fraying discipline and tensions within the group that accounts for 40 percent of the world’s oil exports.

So, great uncertainty still looms over the market. Have producers managed to draw a line in the sand, or will oil prices keep falling in coming months?

After topping $147 a barrel in July, prices have slipped by more than $90 because of lower economic growth around the world. Prices could keep falling next year, analysts say, with some predicting new lows of around $30 a barrel.

International Herald Tribune