Minister: OPEC to Cut Crude Production

ALGIERS, Algeria -- Algerian Energy Minister Chehib Khelil said Sunday that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will announce a 1 million barrel a day cut in crude production during a meeting in Qatar.

"All the countries are in agreement to contribute to reduce OPEC production by 1 million barrels and we will make our official announcement at our next meeting in Doha, from Oct 18-21," Khelil told reporters outside the Algerian parliament in the capital, Algiers.

Levi Ajuonuma, senior spokesman for Nigeria's state-owned oil company, said the meeting would be held only on Thursday, and described it as a one-day "consultative meeting."

Last week, Nigerian oil minister and OPEC president Edmund Daukoru said the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was considering an emergency meeting to discuss its response to a fall in oil prices, which have declined sharply in recent weeks from their mid-July high of $78.40 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Light, sweet crude settled Friday at $58.57 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The last time OPEC trimmed its output _ by 1 million barrels a day _ was December 2004 when oil traded slightly above $40 a barrel.