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Bloomberg

West Texas Intermediate traded near the lowest price in more than four years as nations supplying a third of the world’s oil failed to pledge output cuts before OPEC meets tomorrow. Brent was steady in London.

Futures were little changed in New York after declining 2.2 percent yesterday. Talks in Vienna among officials from Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Mexico didn’t result in a joint commitment to reduce production, according to Rafael Ramirez, Venezuela’s foreign minister and representative to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. All parties agreed they were worried about the price of oil, he said.

Crude has collapsed into a bear market amid the highest U.S. output in three decades and signs of slowing demand growth. A Bloomberg News survey showed 20 analysts were divided on whether OPEC will cut supply to support prices. The 12-member group, which pumps about 40 percent of the world’s oil, has an official target of 30 million barrels a day.

“If OPEC does nothing at all to curtail production we could easily be in a situation where oil could fall a bit further,” Ric Spooner, a chief strategist at CMC Markets in Sydney, said by phone today. “The more likely outcome would be an agreement to restrict output to the quota but given the size of the current surplus, which is generally thought to be about 2 million barrels a day, that may not be enough.”

WTI for January delivery was at $74.13 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 4 cents, at 2:38 p.m. Singapore time. The contract dropped $1.69 to $74.09 yesterday, the lowest close since September 2010. Total volume traded was about 3 percent below the 100-day average. Prices have decreased 25 percent this year.

Global Supply

Brent for January settlement was 7 cents higher at $78.40 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The European benchmark crude traded at a premium of $4.30 to WTI. The spread widened for a third day to close at $4.24 yesterday.

Russia and Mexico, together with OPEC members Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, produced 27.8 million barrels a day of oil last year, according to data from BP Plc. Global output was 86.8 million a day, said the company. OPEC pumped 30.97 million a day in October, surpassing its collective target for a fifth straight month, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

“Supply is exceeding demand but not critically and it can’t lower oil prices in the long term,” Igor Sechin, the chief executive officer of OAO Rosneft, told Bloomberg TV in Vienna. For Russia, even a drop below $60 a barrel “isn’t so dramatic for us that it would require an immediate supply cut.”

Venezuela Diplomacy

The four nations instead agreed to monitor prices for a year, Sechin said. Yesterday’s discussions followed weeks of diplomacy from Venezuela, the holder of the world’s biggest oil reserves, which is seeking to coordinate actions with suppliers outside OPEC to halt the decline.

Ramirez met with energy ministers from Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Russia, Algeria, Iran and Qatar earlier this month. Venezuela is prepared to reduce its own output as part of a wider international pact, he said Nov. 20.

In the U.S., crude inventories expanded by 2.8 million barrels in the week ended Nov. 21, the industry-funded American Petroleum Institute in Washington reported yesterday, according to ForexLive. Stockpiles in the world’s largest oil consumer probably increased by 250,000 barrels, a separate Bloomberg News survey of 10 analysts showed before data from the Energy Information Administration today. That would be the seventh gain in eight weeks.