OPEC has announced that it will hold an emergency crisis meeting in Vienna on 18 November a month ahead of its original meeting in December to discuss a cut in production as oil prices plunged to a 13-month low, sliding below the $80 mark on Friday.

The world's richest cartel wants to constrict supply in a bid to prop them at $80 a barrel or more.

Oil prices had soared in the first half of the year and touched a record high of above $147 a barrel, but with the ongoing global financial crisis, which the price of oil has slid below the $80 mark.

Many experts and the OPEC had predicted in the middle of the year that crude would break the $200-per barrel mark.

Algerian Energy Minister Chakib Khelil, the current OPEC president said that the meeting called ahead of the original schedule, which was supposed to be held at Oran, Algeria on 17 December, would discuss cut in production that can boost prices.

Oil prices continued to fall ignoring the calls by OPEC for a cut in production last month due to the ongoing financial meltdown.

OPEC, which accounts for 40 per cent of global oil output had decided to scale back production by 520,000 barrels per day in September at an informal meet held by OPEC's 13 member group in order to keep prices hovering above $100 a barrel.

OPEC's price hawks Iran and Venezuela had strongly urged a cut in production when oil started falling below the $100 mark. Iran is the world's fourth largest crude producer and pumps about 40 per cent of the world output.

The Iranian Oil Minister, Gholamhossin Nozari, was quoted in a local Iranian newspaper saying, ''At this meeting, our country's request to cut production and the member's crude quotas will be submitted. It seems that if OPEC does not take a major decision to confront falling oil prices, investment conditions in the oil industry would be faced with a serious danger.''

OPEC members Nigeria, Qatar, Libya and Iraq had also called for a cut in the group's oil output last week.

The Arab countries who dominate the cartel are concerned that the international financial crisis and recession which is setting in will lower the demand for oil.

Libya's oil minister, Shukri Ghanem said on Thursday that the cartel should ''look after their interest and reduce output as income will fall from lower oil prices.''

OPEC said in a statement, that "The Organisation reiterates its determination to ensure that oil market fundamentals are kept in balance and market stability is maintained."

Oil prices plunged to a 13-month low Friday, following steep stock market declines, as investors worried that the weakening global economy and fear of recession was driving down demand for fuel worldwide

Analysts believe that since oil prices ended at below $80 a barrel on Friday, it would slide further in the coming weeks.

UK wants OPEC to be 'statesmanlike'
As OPEC called for the emergency meet, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged the cartel to behave in a 'statesmanlike' manner and said it would be wrong to cut production when prices have just started falling and it is wrong for the global economy at a time when many nations are faced with the unprecedented economic meltdown.

''I'm talking to the leaders of OPEC who really are responsible for setting the oil price and telling them that they must not, as some of them are planning to do, cut oil production now so that the price will go up again,'' he said. It would be ''wrong for the world economy for OPEC to cut production and therefore keep prices high,'' he added.

He further said ''They must act in a statesmanlike way to help the rest of the world by making sure that we have a stable reduction in the oil price.''

On Wednesday the US government reported a 5.3-per cent decline in demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended 3 October compared to a year earlier and commentator's feel that the fall in prices could see people drive the consumption up again where price of gasoline has tumbled from a high of approx $ 4 a gallon to little above $2 in the US.

The International Energy Agency has lowered the global demand growth forecasts for 2008 to 0.5 per cent and for 2009 to 0.5 per cent.

In a study comparing prices of various fuels Deutsche Bank  says that "crude oil is the most richly priced commodity currently."  The study revealed among other things that the historic price average of crude of $35 a barrel is now 100 per cent higher than any other commodity, followed by gold at 56 per cent.

The bank also conucted a study on at what level the price of crude was requored to be for the OPEC countries to sustain their budgets. Iran and Venezuela, who are always at the lead in calling for production cuts, need the highest price per barrel - $95, followed by Russia at about $70, and Saudi Arabia at about $55 a barrel

The bank feels that taking many measures into account, the price of $60 a barrel would be justified.