Oil prices consolidated at firmer levels today after the increasingly gloomy global economy and faltering demand dragged prices down to 23-month lows yesterday.
Brent crude futures were up 10 cents at $23.10 a barrel at 9.23 a.m. Irish time, having briefly dipped to $20.70 on Wednesday, the lowest level since October 1999.
OPEC producers have agreed to keep oil output unchanged, ruling out curbs that might have risked deepening the economic downturn by raising the cost of energy supplies. Ministers will ratify their pact at a session scheduled for 1 p.m. this afternoon.
OPEC is expected to leave output at 23.2 million barrels per day for 10 member countries.
"OPEC [The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries] have struck a fine balance and shown a good deal of sensitivity to wider issues," said Mr Glenn Murray of oil brokers Azure in France.
Oil prices remain well below the $31.05 peak that traded in the immediate aftermath of the suicide plane attacks on the United States on September 11th.
Policy-makers from the world's leading industrial nations are battling to counter growing pessimism over the global economic outlook as the International Monetary Fund warned of feeble growth ahead.
The world economy was already slowing before the attacks in the United States and now faces an even worse prognosis, the Washington-based international lender said in its flagship World Economic Outlook on Wednesday.