OPEC will meet early to discuss falling oil prices Oil drops again as economic concerns trump hinted OPEC cuts

Cartel will gather next month as demand for oil keeps sinking

Crude oil fell more than $2 a barrel as concern that fuel demand will drop if a global recession develops outweighed signs that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries may curb output.

Oil prices have plunged since reaching a record in July on signs that fuel demand will drop because of the weak economy. The Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England cut rates to spur an economic rebound. OPEC said today that it will hold an emergency meeting on Nov. 18 to tackle the drop in prices.

"The main driver of the market has been concern that the global economy will contract," said Michael Fitzpatrick, vice president for energy risk management at MF Global Ltd. in New York. "There's been a lot of trading on emotion because of the recent headlines."

Crude oil for November delivery fell $2.37, or 2.7 percent, to $86.58 a barrel at the close of floor trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

"We held at important support around $86 yesterday," said Tom Bentz, senior energy analyst at BNP Paribas in New York. "If we are able to break through, prices are going to fall to the lower $80s and maybe the high $70s."

The U.S., which consumes 24 percent of the world's oil, is now in a recession, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists. The economy will shrink at a 0.2 percent annual pace in the third quarter and 0.8 percent in the last three months of 2008, according to the median estimate of 52 economists surveyed Oct. 3 to Oct. 8.

OPEC is "very likely" to cut oil production at the Nov. 18 meeting in Vienna because prices have fallen "dramatically," the group's president, Chakib Khelil, said today.

The group, which is responsible for more than 40 percent of global oil output, had been scheduled to meet next on Dec. 17 in Oran, Algeria.