OPEC to leave oil price targets alone

OPEC, the producer of more than a third of the world’s oil, has moved to abandon its price targets because its member countries can do nothing to drive prices lower than nearly $50 a barrel.

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries - the group that represents 11 mostly Middle Eastern countries - will continue to maintain its current quota of 27 million barrels a day, Iran’s oil minister said at a meeting in the Austrian capital Vienna yesterday.

Members will study a new price target, the minister said, because the current $22 to $28 a barrel goal is unrealistic.