LONDON, Nov 21: Opec, a week after challenging its rivals to cut output or risk plummeting crude prices, appeared close on Wednesday to winning the dangerous game of dare that has destabilised the oil market.

A rebound this week in oil prices to $19 a barrel reflects growing expectations that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) will get some form of cooperation from its rivals in trimming global crude supply in line with evaporating demand.

Mexico and Norway have already promised cutbacks, while Oman is also on board. Everything still depends on Russia, the world’s second largest producer behind Saudi Arabia. But even Moscow has made conciliatory noises in recent days.

It certainly looks as if non-Opec is pulling in the same direction at the moment, said Doug Leggate, an oil expert at Commerzbank in London. There seems to have been some move towards a positive outcome from the Mexican oil minister visiting Moscow and Oslo over the last few days.

But Opec may not get everything its way, analysts believe.

The 11-nation cartel wants rivals outside the club to sign up to cuts totalling 500,000 barrels a day. It will then proceed with a cut of its own of 1.5 million bpd, effective January 1. The idea is to squeeze supply so that prices can recover from a 30-per cent slump since September.

Analysts said however that even with their new-found spirit of cooperation, non-Opec countries could struggle to come up with the required 500,000-barrel cut.

The big issue is whether non-Opec can come up with 0.5 million barrels per day, noted Lawrence Eagles, an oil expert with the GNI brokerage. If however non-Opec comes up with lower cuts it is possible that Opec could temper its cut slightly as well. This could still mean a large reduction in world output.

Russia remains the big if. Norway and Mexico do not want to cut unless Moscow substantially increases its token offering of a 30,000-bpd cut.

Yet the signals from Moscow are conflicting at best, and change daily.

On Tuesday, a top official talked of the possibility of extra “measures” on oil output. Yet on Wednesday, Moscow said it was pencilling lower oil prices into calculations for next year’s budget — which some saw as a hint that it was ready for a long bout of brinkmanship with Opec over output.—AFP