OPEC holds production unchanged; crude oil prices fall

VIENNA — OPEC decided Thursday not to cut petroleum production, despite the plunge in prices in recent months that has indicated the diminishing clout of the oil cartel.

On news of the decision by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, the price of Brent crude oil, a global benchmark, fell an additional $4 to a four-year low of about $73. U.S. crude dropped below $70, a significant threshold.

A more than 30 percent decline in prices in recent months has shaken the 12-member group. For three years, OPEC had little trouble keeping prices in the $100-a-barrel range that many of its members consider satisfactory.

But markets are spinning out of OPEC’s control. Prices have come under pressure as global output of crude oil outstripped demand this year. Analysts forecast ex- cess supplies of crude to continue to build in 2015.

The main new source of supply is oil extracted from shale in the United States, which is expected to add about 1 million barrels a day of oil production this year and an additional 1 million barrels a day in 2015.

OPEC seems at a loss about how to cope with this new source of com- petition and is also struggling to influence other big producers outside the organization like Russia and Brazil. Unable to come up with a strategy for handling these new developments, the cartel has decided not to intervene, evidently hoping that low prices will eventually curb production in the United States.

The price decline “does not mean we should really rush and do something,” OPEC’s secretary-general, Abdalla El-Badri, told reporters after the meeting here Thursday. “We don’t want to panic,” he said. “We want to see how the market behaves.”

Even though lower prices will hurt oil producers in the United States, the U.S. economy will probably benefit as consum- ers have more money to spend and companies’ energy bills decline. Europe and Japan, both large oil importers, are also likely to get a boost from lower prices, although in Europe high taxes on energy limit gains for consumers.

Lower prices, on the other hand, could be very painful for OPEC producers, who depend heavily on oil revenue.

Some of the world’s largest exporters of oil, including Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela, are members of OPEC. The group meets at least a couple of times a year, usually in Vienna, where it has its headquarters, but sometimes meets more often to discuss and try to manage the global oil markets.