As OPEC Faces Tough Test, Lower Oil Prices Loom These are the moments OPEC exists for: A sharp drop in global oil prices has reduced the amount of money OPEC countries take in by nearly $1 billion a day. The 12-member group's purpose is to coordinate how much oil is produced in order to keep prices high and stable and maximize member countries' revenue while making sure global demand for oil stays strong. A steep, coordinated cut in output could stop and possibly reverse what has been a 30 percent decline in prices over five months. But there is widespread doubt that OPEC will be able to do much of anything when it meets Thursday in Vienna. Either the members won't agree to a cut, analysts say, or the cut will be too small to influence oil prices. They could also, as in the past, agree to lower production but then fail to stick to the target. That could mean further declines in the price of oil, along with fuels such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. "The idea that this is a cartel that places meaningful restrictions on its members' behavior is fiction," says Jeff Colgan, a political science professor at Brown University's Watson Institute who studies OPEC. OPEC countries do exactly what we would expect them to do if there were no such thing as OPEC. OPEC is at a crossroads. The group, which produces 30 million barrels of oil per day, one-third of global liquid fuel demand, is facing the most pronounced decline in oil prices since the financial crisis hit in 2008. And the world now is drastically different. Oil production outside of OPEC is surging for the first time in a generation, boosting global oil supplies. U.S. production has surged 70 percent since 2008, adding 3.5 million barrels of oil per day. The increase itself is more than any OPEC member produces other than Saudi Arabia. At the same time, OPEC members around the world ? those in the Middle East and North Africa, along with countries such as Venezuela and Nigeria ? are undergoing wrenching political upheaval that is putting extraordinary pressure on government budgets. OPEC countries need oil money more than ever, making the steep cuts in production that would be necessary to push up prices all but impossible. "They have quite a task in front of them," says Bhushan Bahree, senior director for OPEC and Middle East research at the analysis firm IHS. They have to decide how much room to make, if any, for North American supply growth. Without a cut in output, global supply is on track to exceed demand by 1.2 million barrels per day next year. If that comes to pass, oil prices would almost certainly decline further. Even a modest announced cut of 500,000 barrels per day, or adherence to current OPEC quotas might not be enough to stop the slide in prices. Already, the global price of oil has fallen 30 percent since late June, to $80 a barrel, from $115. This has been a boon for consumers, airlines and shippers. The U.S. national average retail price of gasoline has fallen to a four-year low of $2.81 per gallon. When OPEC meets Thursday, analysts expect members in dire financial positions such as Iran, Iraq, Nigeria and Venezuela to argue for a significant production cut. Their problem: They can't afford to cut output themselves.