Crude oil declines on OPEC news

Crude oil prices fell again Monday after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries put off a decision concerning whether or not to cut production further in an effort to push prices higher even though indications are that the cartel will cut production further when it meets in Algeria on 17 December.

Even those cuts are in question, however, after the Saudi Arabian oil minister said over the weekend that no further cuts should be necessary if OPEC member nations will make cuts already announced.

Currently, according to OPEC’s secretary general, members of the cartel have complied with between 800,000 and 1.2 million barrels per day of the 1.5 million barrels per day in cuts announced in October.

Continuing worries about erosion of demand was also hurting prices as economies from the US and the UK to China and Russia produced new data showing that manufacturing activity is continuing to slow.

At around 1 p.m. in New York, January contracts for West Texas Intermediate crude were down $4.41 to $50.02 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after having gone as low as $49.80 per barrel earlier, a decline of 8 percent.

At last report, meanwhile, Brent Crude was $4.83 lower to $48.66 per barrel.

In afternoon trade, Nymex January gasoline futures had dropped 9 cents to $1.12 per gallon while at-the-pump prices for regular unleaded gasoline in the United States had dropped another half-cent to $1.82 per gallon on average nationally.