WASHINGTON, Feb.

The president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said that production cuts would be considered in unofficial meetings in Cairo this week. Chakib Khelil, president of OPEC and the Algerian Minister of Energy and Mines, said Saturday's meetings would have crude oil production cuts on the agenda, the Kuwait News Agency reported Wednesday. OPEC trimmed production by 1.5 million barrels a day in October in an effort to prop up oil prices, which have fallen to under $50 a barrel recently, down from a high of $147.27 a barrel in July. Recently comments by some OPEC ministers favor another production cut, the news agency said.

December may be too early for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Counties ministers to decide on production cuts, a Libyan oil official says. OPEC members cut production by 1.5 million barrels a day in October to prop up prices as world demand has fallen in a time of floundering economies.

According to El-Khabar newspaper (October 2, 2008), the Algerian Minister of Energy and Mines, Mr. Chakib Khelil, said that any potential drop of oil prices during the two next coming years won't affect the national economy of Algeria, which has a foreign currency reserves of $133 billion.

OPEC's decision to cut oil production, announced early in the morning on Sept. 10, took most analysts by surprise.