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Brent futures slid as much as 0.9 percent in London, dropping for a fourth day. Falling prices will stabilize on their own and Persian Gulf group members have reached a consensus on production, according to Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will take a “unified position,” he said yesterday, without elaborating on what will be decided. The group will do whatever it takes to balance the market, said the energy minister of the United Arab Emirates.

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

“OPEC is the main event,” Michael McCarthy, a chief strategist at CMC Markets in Sydney, said by phone today. “The Saudi actions over the past month quite clearly indicate to the market that OPEC is unlikely to agree to production cuts, or if they do, the market will doubt the intent to deliver.”

Brent for January settlement declined as much as 69 cents to $77.06 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange and was $77.10 at 12:33 p.m. Sydney time. It slid 58 cents to $77.75 yesterday, the lowest close since Sept. 9, 2010. The European benchmark crude traded at a $4.01 premium to WTI.

OPEC Output

WTI for January delivery dropped as much as 82 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $72.87 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 40 cents to $73.69 yesterday, the lowest close since Sept. 21, 2010. The volume of all futures traded was about 47 percent above the 100-day average. Prices have decreased 26 percent this year.

Iran, OPEC’s fifth-largest producer, won’t cut its output or ask Saudi Arabia to do so, according to Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh. His country’s position on the market is close to that of the Saudis, he said after meeting Al-Naimi. Iran also held talks with Venezuela.

OPEC pumped 30.97 million barrels a day of oil in October, exceeding its collective target for a fifth straight month, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

U.S. Stockpiles

Crude inventories in the U.S., the world’s biggest oil consumer, expanded by 1.95 million barrels to 383 million through Nov. 21, the Energy Information Administration reported yesterday. That was the seventh gain in eight weeks. Supplies were projected to increase by 250,000 barrels, according to the median estimate in a separate Bloomberg survey of 10 analysts.

Stockpiles at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for WTI, rose by 1.3 million to 24.6 million last week, said the EIA, the Energy Department’s statistical arm. Production climbed by 73,000 barrels to 9.08 million a day, the highest in weekly records that started in January 1983.

Gasoline inventories gained by 1.83 million to 206.4 million barrels, the report showed. Distillate fuels, which include heating oil and diesel, shrank by 1.65 million to 113.1 million.