NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries will hold an extraordinary meeting in Vienna on November 18 after the global financial crisis sent crude prices below $90 a barrel.

"The Organisation is concerned about the deteriorating economic conditions with contagion risks," OPEC's Vienna-based secretariat yesterday said in an e-mailed statement. The gathering will "discuss the global financial crisis, the world economic situation and the impacts on the oil market".

Qatar's Oil Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah and Shokri Ghanem, chairman of Libya's National Oil Corp., had earlier told Bloomberg that they backed such a summit next month. OPEC had been scheduled to next meet on December 17 in Algeria.

Oil prices have plummeted 40 percent from their July record of $147.27 a barrel as the worsening credit crunch threatens to restrain economic growth and curtail energy demand.

The "reasons for the fall of oil prices will be considered in this meeting", Iranian Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari said earlier yesterday, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency.

OPEC resolved at its most recent meeting in Vienna last month to stick more closely to official quotas, implying a cut of about 500,000 barrels a day.

The official production quota for 11 of OPEC's members is 28.8 million barrels a day. Collectively, those members exceeded that target by 390,000 barrels a day in September, according to Bloomberg estimates. Those 11 nations do not include Iraq, which has no quota, and Indonesia, which is set to leave OPEC next year.

Saudi Arabia, the organization's biggest producer, has yet to comment on the summit.

Saudi Reluctance

"The Saudis don't want to meet at all," said Leo Drollas, deputy executive director at the Center for Global Energy Studies in London. "They weren't happy to meet in Vienna and didn't want to announce any output restrictions. But they have the others around their necks and have to go through the motions."

Saudi Arabia would need a minimum oil price of $65 a barrel this year to meet its infrastructure spending and debt obligations if it pumped at a rate of 9 million barrels a day, Drollas said. The kingdom produced about 450,000 barrels a day more than this last month, according to Bloomberg data.

"There's no way the Saudis need prices of $80 a barrel" to meet their budget requirements, Drollas added. While the kingdom may overtly agree to a cut if pressed by other members, "they won't implement it."