OPEC calls emergency meet as oil slides below $80

13 October 2008

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.