"Oil Prices Soar on Tentative OPEC Deal to Cut Production"

"OPEC’s 14 oil producing nations agreed on Wednesday to modestly cut their collective oil output later this year in an effort to bolster sagging prices, according to a cartel official. The decision sent global oil prices soaring by more than 5 percent.

Under the agreement, reached in Algiers, cartel members would decide at the group’s next formal meeting, on Nov. 30 in Vienna, on details of trimming production by up to 700,000 barrels a day, from a current level of just over 33 million barrels a day.

But that cut would represent less than 1 percent of total global production from all sources, barely reducing an oil glut that has driven down prices. The agreement at this stage does not set production target levels for each country — potentially giving leeway to Saudi Arabia and other producers that have spare well capacity, energy experts say."

Clifford Krauss and Stanley Reed report for the New York Times September 28, 2016.