WITNESS: Speculation and sandwiches as OPEC burns night oil

Barbara Lewis is deputy energy editor for Europe, Middle East and Africa for Reuters. She has worked at Reuters for eight years and has covered numerous OPEC meetings over the past decade. In the following story she describes the tensions and fervor of an 'ordinary' oil exporters' quota-setting meeting -- in Ramadan and with oil prices around $100 a barrel.

By Barbara Lewis

VIENNA (Reuters) - Most meetings of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are tagged "extraordinary," but some are more extraordinary than others.

Five-star hotels are regularly transformed from the serene and stylish to the downright unruly as journalists in pursuit of oil ministers send potted plants flying and drown out gently tinkling lobby pianists with their frantic questions.

Reporters have even broken limbs in the race to deliver every syllable uttered by the Saudi oil minister, often the man with more influence than any other over multi-billion crude markets because his country is the world's leading exporter.

The 149th meeting of OPEC, held earlier this month at its Vienna headquarters, was officially an ordinary meeting, meaning it would cover unexciting regular business, such as accounts and appointments.

But as oil headed back down toward $100 a barrel and tensions mounted between some members keener to see a higher price than others, its complications became Byzantine even by OPEC's standards.

In the run-up to the ministers' plenary session, which begins with journalists mobbing ministers in a ritual indecorously known as the 'gang bang', all the signs were that OPEC would do what it has done so often before.

With oil prices still very high, it would be content to roll over its official quotas and then discreetly adjust the amount pumped above official limits regardless of formal policy.

In hindsight, there were warnings it might not be so simple.

Iran, and other members believed to be keener than Saudi Arabia to keep prices high, had said the kingdom needed to cut back its output. A delegate whispered the meeting could be long and acrimonious.

None of the journalists wanted to believe that. It was not even scheduled to start until after 10 p.m., after the Ramadan fast was broken.

THE DOHA QUOTAS

Alarm grew around three hours into the conference at OPEC's secretariat on the banks of the Donau Canal -- as opposed to the more romantic Danube River -- when ministers took a 10-minute break.

Clearly, it wasn't over yet.

Shortly afterwards the Kuwait delegation left, prompting a fresh outbreak of speculation among a press pack sustained only by adrenalin and the sandwiches OPEC lays on.

Officially, the Kuwaitis had a flight to catch. The unofficial line was they were not happy, although no one could say precisely why and that was never confirmed.

Eventually, around 3 a.m., other ministers began to emerge and this time the meeting really was over. "Minister, minister. Is there an agreement? Are you keeping output unchanged?" yelled the line of waiting journalists just about contained by a flimsy rope cordon.

"We're returning to Doha quotas," said one -- words immediately relayed down mobile phones to news editors who listened in blank amazement, if not panic. What on earth were the Doha quotas?

Minutes later, Venezuela's tall and quietly spoken Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez appeared and gave out a new output target of 28.8 million barrels per day -- lower, it would seem than the previous target of 29.67. Swift alerts hit the wires.

But with every minister, the story grew more complex.

The new output target, we were told eventually, was steady with the previous one, but only after some tricky maths.

We had to take figures for September 2007 when OPEC last revised its output ceiling. We then had to subtract the allocation for Indonesia -- which as a net oil importer has decided to leave OPEC -- and add on new members Ecuador and Angola.

It was not exactly the straightforward no-change everyone had expected before nearly five hours of night-time talks.

In a further twist -- which was provocative given expensive oil has been a major issue in the U.S. election campaign -- the final communique emphasized strict compliance with output targets, something Saudi Arabia has not been doing for months.

OPEC's President Chakib Khelil of Algeria told reporters that if they did their sums properly, they would find 520,000 barrels per day of production was being removed from the most recent output levels.

After calculating for what remained of the night and into the following week, many have yet to be convinced. They are also still trying to catch up on their sleep.

(Editing by Sara Ledwith)