Oil prices rose Monday following a weekend announcement that OPEC would meet later this week to discuss production quotas, including the possibility of cutting output by 1 million barrels a day to stop falling prices, the Associated Press reported. The market also was reacting to the shutdown last week at two of Norway's offshore oil platforms _ reducing flows by about 10 percent from the world's third-largest oil exporter _ and an early snowstorm that hit the northeastern United States late last week. Light sweet crude for November delivery was up 50 cents to US$59.07 a barrel in midmorning Asian trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. November Brent crude at London's ICE Futures exchange rose 35 cents to US$59.87 a barrel. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said this weekend that it would hold an emergency meeting Thursday in Qatar to review the market situation and discuss production quotas. Qatar's Energy Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah said OPEC members also will talk about «the possibility of reducing total oil output by 1 million barrels a day to stop any further decline in prices.» Last week, OPEC President and Nigeria Oil Minister Edmund Daukoru said members had agreed to trim global production by 1 million barrels a day. Since a mid-July high of US$78.40 a barrel, the cost of crude oil has dropped by more than 25 percent. Recently, prices stabilized around the US$60-a-barrel level amid expectations that OPEC will try to prevent further sharp declines by trimming its output. The last time OPEC reduced its output _ also by 1 million barrels a day _ was December 2004 when oil traded slightly above US$40 a barrel. In Norway on Friday, safety officials upheld an order to shut down two offshore oil platforms because of defects in their lifeboat systems. The order will delay production of about 280,000 barrels per day of oil from Norway's average daily production of about 2.7 million barrels of crude oil, light oil and natural gas liquids. In the United States on Thursday and Friday, a record snowfall buried western New York state under nearly two feet (60 cm) of snow, leaving thousands of people without electricity. In other Nymex trading Monday, heating oil futures increased 1.35 cent to US$ 1.7313 a gallon while gasoline futures rose 1.43 cent to US$1.4827 a gallon.
