(Ecofin Agency) - Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) are to gather this Wednesday in Vienna, to conclude output cuts agreed to in a meeting in Algiers in September.

This initiative which is the first in eight years is aimed at boosting crude oil prices in the market after almost two years of depression.

The failure to reach an agreement could send oil prices downward.

But the question of the size of the cut to be made by each of OPEC’s members, particularly Iraq and Iran is yet to be answered.

Saudi Arabia has been reported to have withdrawn from a discussion with non-OPEC producers including Russia slated for Monday, suggesting that OPEC doesn’t necessarily need to curb output because the group still has no in-house agreement on how to implement supply cuts, according to two delegates.

OPEC officials were expected to meet with non-members including Russia on Monday ahead of a ministerial meeting in Vienna two days later but the group had called another internal meeting to resolve mainly the question of whether Iran and Iraq are willing to cut production.

Meanwhile Libya on Sunday pulled out of any decision to cut, claiming that it was in a dangerous economic situation.

Iraq has said it will cut output but it lacks the money needed to fight Islamic State extremists and has also disagreed with OPEC on the level of its current output. Iran on the other hand says it will not cut production until it reaches pre-sanctions levels of about 4 million barrels a day.

Algerian Energy Minister, Noureddine Bouterfa, during a meeting in Iran on Saturday, presented a proposal for an OPEC cut of 1.1 million barrels a day while OPEC is also proposing a 600,000 barrel a day output cut by non-OPEC producers, the official said.

“The estimates for OPEC production in October are between 33.5 and 33.85 million b/d. As OPEC said in Algiers that its future production ceiling would not exceed 32.5-33 million b/d it means that the organization will have to cut its output by 500,000-1,300,000 b/d. I think that OPEC has no choice but to succeed in Vienna at the end of this month. It is very likely that the oil market will rebalance itself next year but we must not forget that there are two main conditions for a lasting bullish impact: the oversupply of oil must be eliminated and world oil stocks must be reduced,” Francis Perrin, the chairman of Strategy and Energy Policy and the Editor of Arab Oil & Gas told Ecofin Agency.

Anita Fatunji