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 Friday's developments set up the fractious cartel for more price
wars in an already heavily oversupplied market.
Oil prices have more than halved over the past 18 months to a
fraction of what most OPEC members need to balance their budgets.
Brent oil futures fell by 1 percent on Friday to trade around $43,
only a few dollars off a six year low.
Banks such as Goldman Sachs predict they could fall further to as
low as $20 per barrel as the world produces more oil than it
consumes and runs out of capacity to store the excess.
A final OPEC statement was issued with no mention of a new
production ceiling. The last time OPEC failed to reach a deal was in
2011 when Saudi Arabia was pushing the group to increase output to
avoid a price spike amid a Libyan uprising.
"We have no decision, no number," Iranian oil minister Bijan
Zangeneh told reporters after the meeting.
OPEC's secretary general Abdullah al-Badri said OPEC could not agree
on any figures because it could not predict how much oil Iran would
add to the market next year, as sanctions are withdrawn under a deal
reached six months ago with world powers over its nuclear program.
Most ministers left the meeting without making comments.
Badri tried to lessen the embarrassment by saying OPEC was as strong
as ever, only to hear an outburst of laughter from reporters and
analysts in the conference room.
"EVERYONE WELCOME"
A year ago, Saudi Arabia pushed though an OPEC decision to defend
market share instead of cutting output, ultimately hoping to drive
high-cost producers such as U.S. shale firms out of the market.
Many poorer OPEC members have said the group's largest producer was
effectively twisting their arms, prompting the Saudi oil minister,
Ali al-Naimi, to say he would listen to everyone this time.
Iran has made its position clear ahead of the meeting with Zangeneh
saying Tehran would raise supply by at least 1 million barrels per
day - or one percent of global supply - after sanctions are lifted.
The world is already producing up to 2 million bpd more than it
consumes.
Naimi earlier had said he hoped growing global demand could absorb
an expected jump in Iranian production next year: "Everyone is
welcome to go into the market".
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He made no comment after the meeting.
At the meeting, OPEC welcomed back returning member Indonesia, its
13th member. The cartel accounts for about a third of world oil
output and does not include Russia or the United States, which rival
Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest producers.
"The pressure will build on OPEC and oil prices. At this rate of
overproduction we will run out of onshore storage in the first
quarter," said Gary Ross, a veteran OPEC watcher and the founder of
PIRA think-tank.
"DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY"
Initially on Friday there was no indication of a repeat of the 2011
meeting, which Naimi had called the "worst ever".
OPEC sources told Reuters the ministers had agreed to roll over
existing policies during the first couple of hours of deliberations.
That involved raising the collective ceiling, excluding new member
Indonesia, to 31.5 million bpd from the previous 30 million -
effectively bringing it in line with real production numbers.
But later, all decisions appeared to have been overturned, leaving
the group with no official policy. It was not immediately clear what
happened behind closed doors.
"Now the Viennese OPEC family gathering is over, the music has
stopped and they're sweeping up, but nothing has changed - the oil
production remains unchanged, the oil production quota remains
divorced from real-world oil production, and the slightly
dysfunctional OPEC family - like most families - has gone its
separate ways," said Christopher Wheaton, energy fund manager and
analyst at Allianz Global Investors.
(Additional reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin in Vienna, Shadia
Nasralla and Marianna Parraga in Houston; Writing by Dmitry
Zhdannikov; Editing by Peter Graff)
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