THEY CAN'T CUT IT ENOUGH TO PROP UP PRICES...:

Opec members seek emergency meeting (Carola Hoyos, October 8 2008, Financial Times)

Almost half the members of the Opec oil cartel are considering an emergency meeting in Vienna next month as oil prices dropped to their lowest level in nearly a year.

Almost half the members of cartel have in the past few days called on the group to act to halt the slide before their next official meeting scheduled to take place in Algeria in late December.

Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Iraq, Venezuela and Ecuador, whose economies tend to be most dependent on high oil prices and whose ministers are among the most hawkish of the 13-member group, have all lobbied for the cartel to drop output.

...but they could reduce it enough that, combined with the lower price they're going to get, they can't prop up their regimes any more.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 8, 2008 7:55 PM