The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) agreed in Vienna on Friday to cut oil output by 1.5 million barrels a day.

OPEC made the decision at an urgent meeting in Vienna on Friday in the OPEC headquarters, which is aimed at addressing the slide of oil prices over the past months.

In a resolution passed at the one-day meeting, OPEC also reached consensus on the distribution of an overall output cut among the 13 OPEC members, which is effective as of Nov. 1, 2008.

"The Conference has decided to decrease the current OPEC-11 production ceiling of 28.808 million barrels a day by 1.5 million barrels a day, effective 1 November 2008," said the resolution.

Saudi Arabia, the biggest oil exporter in the world, will reduce its daily output by 466,000 barrels, the biggest cut among the OPEC members.

Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Venezuela and Nigeria also agreed to cut their daily production by over 100,000 barrels.

OPEC, which produces around 40 percent of the world's oil, also urged non-OPEC oil exporters to contribute to efforts to restore prices to "reasonable levels," noting that "OPEC cannot be expected to bear alone the burden of restoring equilibrium" of oil supply and demand.

Over the past three months, oil price has seen a steep slide on the international market, partly triggered by global financial crisis.

On July 11, 2008, oil price hit record high of US$147.27 per barrel, but it has plunged sharply thereafter.

Earlier on Thursday, the price of New York oil dived to a new 16-month low in choppy trade.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for December delivery, sank to as low as US$65.90 per barrel, which was last seen on June 13, 2007.

(Xinhua News Agency October 24, 2008)