Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- OAO Lukoil said OPEC may ask Russia to cut output this week to help arrest a five-month slide in oil prices. StatoilHydro ASA ruled out Norwegian participation.

OPEC, the producer of more than 40 percent of the world’s oil, is meeting in Algeria in two days to consider scaling back production further after previous attempts failed to halt a $100 slump in oil prices from a record. The group has urged non-OPEC members Russia, Mexico and Norway to help shoulder the burden, as they did a decade ago when crude slumped toward $10 a barrel.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is seeking a cut from Russia, the world’s second-biggest producer after Saudi Arabia, of “between 200,000 and 300,000 barrels a day,” Lukoil Chief Executive Officer Vagit Alekperov told a conference today in Moscow. Sandrine Toerstad, head of market analysis for StatoilHydro, said “prices are too high for Norway to cut.”

“The bottom line is that Russia needs the money more and needs a higher oil price more than Norway,” said Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Moscow-based UralSib.

OPEC will probably lower output targets by at least 2 million barrels a day, according to 18 of 33 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Lukoil, Russia’s largest non-state oil producer, will cooperate with any government decision to cut production, Alekperov said. OAO Rosneft, the country’s biggest oil company, also said it would respond.

“If the government makes a decision, of course we’ll be constructive,” Rosneft Vice President Peter O’Brien told reporters in Moscow today.

Russian Attendance

President Dmitry Medvedev on Dec. 11 said that Russia may cut oil output and participate in new and existing “suppliers organizations.” A delegation of Kremlin officials and Russian oil executives, including Alekperov, plan to attend OPEC’s Dec. 17 meeting in Oran, Algeria.

The price of Urals crude, Russia’s main export earner, has slumped 70 percent since reaching a high in July to $43.37 a barrel, below the $70 average needed to balance the budget. Russian crude production declined for an 11th straight month in November, by 0.3 percent from a year earlier, to 9.82 million barrels a day.

Falling oil prices have forced Lukoil to cut investment in the next few years and delay the start of international projects, Alekperov said.

State-run Rosneft, which was built into the country’s largest crude producer from assets that once belonged to bankrupt OAO Yukos Oil Co., is chaired by Igor Sechin, the deputy prime minister responsible for energy.

‘Opportunistic’

Oil output in Russia is likely to fall next year, making any action in support of OPEC “opportunistic,” Renaissance Capital Chief Strategist Roland Nash told Bloomberg TV by phone today. “I would be very, very surprised if Russia would do any further commitments or even become a member of OPEC.”

In 2002, Norway, the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter, agreed to follow OPEC in cutting production when crude traded at about $21 a barrel. The country’s oil production peaked between 2000 and 2001 and averaged 2.169 million barrels a day in November.

“I don’t think Norwegian authorities are thinking of a production cut at all” this time around, said Toerstad of StatoilHydro, Norway’s largest oil and gas company. “Production costs on the Norwegian continental shelf are roughly $15 a barrel,” she told a seminar today in Oslo.

The country has no plans to lower oil output, Stein Hernes, a spokesman for the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, said on Dec. 10.

OPEC President Chakib Khelil said today that Mexico doesn’t need to join in any concerted action as its output is already falling.

To contact the reporter on this story: Stephen Bierman at sbierman1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 15, 2008 13:21 EST