OPEC keeps oil production at current high level

VIENNA (AP) — OPEC nations decided Friday to keep producing oil at their current high levels, effectively acknowledging their inability to push up crude prices.

Senior oil official Amir Hossein Zamaninia said last week Iran hopes to bring an extra 500,000 barrels on the market by early next year.

The decision effectively leaves it up to individual members how much crude to pump and was a strong signal of OPEC's eroding ability to act as a group in efforts to influence supply, demand — and prices.

"The logic is simple," he said, of OPEC's present clout in a market where non-members such as Russia and U.S. shale producers play an increasingly large role.

Some OPEC members are producing at their limit and like at previous meetings, the pressure was on swing-producer Saudi Arabia, which accounts for about a third of OPEC's output, to cut back.

The Saudis already resisted cutbacks a year ago, a strategy calculated to put higher-cost outside competitors — like U.S. shale oil producers — out of business.