Traders Bet on $30 Crude Oil as OPEC Plans Talks on Output Cut

By Margot Habiby

Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Oil traders made their biggest bet yet that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will fail to prevent crude prices from plunging below $30 a barrel.

Trades in crude-oil options contracts that would allow the holder to sell oil for February delivery at $30 a barrel reached 1,406 on the New York Mercantile Exchange today, making the contract the day's second-most active, exchange data show.

OPEC, the supplier of about 40 percent of the world's oil, plans to meet Nov. 29 in Cairo to discuss another output cut after crude oil fell to $54.67 a barrel, a 21-month low, earlier today. The 13-member organization cut production by 1.5 million barrels a day at a meeting in Vienna last month.

``Somebody is buying a little bit of insurance with a very deep out-of-the-money put option,'' said Tim Evans, an energy analyst with Citi Futures Perspective in New York. ``It's very exciting to think about $30 oil, but are we going there? Most likely not.''

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