OPEC ministers are in agreement on the need to cut output when they meet on Wednesday in Algeria to prop up sagging prices, OPEC President Chakib Khelil said on Saturday. “There is an OPEC consensus on the reduction. But I can not tell you (more),” Khelil told reporters. Since early September, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has already agreed to reduce supply by a total of two million barrels per day (bpd). OPEC oil ministers are scheduled to meet in the western Algerian city of Oran on Wednesday amid expectations they will endorse a large cut in supplies to prevent further falls in oil prices. Khelil, who is also Algeria's energy and mining minister, said Russia and some other non-OPEC oil producing countries like Azerbijan, Oman, and Syria are to due attend the Oran meeting. But he gave no further details about their possible contribution in trimming oil crude supply. The head of OPEC also said Russia and three other non-OPEC members will take part in the oil producers' summit next week in Oran. Khelil said Russia will send its deputy prime minister in charge of energy and its oil minister to Wednesday's summit. Khelil asserted that a final consensus has been reached by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to reduce oil output levels. Oil prices rallied from early lows Friday as the president and the Treasury Department said they were prepared to act if needed to save the US auto industry after a proposed bailout for Detroit Three collapsed. Oil prices, off by as much as 7 percent earlier in the day, fell $1.70 to settle at $46.28 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That was still up 13 percent compared with last Friday's close. In London, January Brent crude fell 98 cents to settle at $46.41 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
