(AP) Oil prices fell Friday in a sign of traders' skepticism that OPEC will cut output by 1.2 million barrels a day, even as some cartel members said further reductions were possible. The pledge to rein in output, announced Friday after an emergency meeting in Doha, Qatar, comes as oil prices have dropped by more than 25 percent since a mid-July peak above $78 a barrel.But many analysts believe the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will have difficulty enforcing the production cut in its entirety because oil prices are still twice as high as they were just three years ago. "It's clear there will be some production cutbacks. But is it going to be 1.2 million barrels? That's probably unlikely," said Andrew Lebow, a broker at Man Financial.
Light sweet crude for November delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell $1.05 to $57.45 a barrel. In London, December Brent crude on the ICE Futures exchange declined by 52 cents to $60.35 a barrel.
"The question now is whether OPEC members will comply with the new quotas or whether history will repeat itself and OPEC members over-produce," Global Insight analyst Simon Wardell said in a research note. "The markets appear to be betting on the latter."
United Arab Emirates Oil Minister Mohammed bin Dhaen al-Hamili said the reductions will come from actual production levels, which are believed to be about 29.5 million barrels of oil per day. The official OPEC quota, which does not include Iraq's estimated output of 2 million barrels a day, is 28 million barrels a day. Saudi Arabia, the world's largest producer, is set to reduce output by 380,000 barrels a day, while Iran will cut by 176,000 barrels a day and Venezuela will trim 138,000 barrels a day, analysts said.
Wardell said the market should expect an actual cut of about 800,000 barrels a day and that "this will help to solidify prices."
However, if the Northern Hemisphere winter is mild, energy prices could fall further, analysts said. Domestic inventories of heating oil and natural gas are well above historical averages for this time of year.
In other Nymex trading, heating oil fell 3.94 cents to $1.68-07 a gallon on the Nymex, while gasoline declined 1.69 cent to $1.4725 a gallon. Natural gas fell 6 cents to $7.07 per 1,000 cubic feet.