Norway has in the past attended occasional OPEC ministerial meetings as an observer, but UK governments have consistently maintained an arms-length relationship with no official links to the Vienna-based exporters organisation.

Non-OPEC producers Russia, Mexico, Oman, and Kazakhstan have already indicated that they will join the 11 OPEC members at the meeting.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez met his counterpart Vladimir Putin on Monday for negotiations focusing on Russia's role in stabilising energy prices.

Chavez, who arrived in Moscow from Teheran where he met Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, has vowed to support oil prices that fell sharply in response to a drop in energy consumption following the 11 September terror strikes on the United States.

Because of its policy on energy exports that account for a large portion of annual state revenues, Russia has so far rejected OPEC suggestions that it could meet the organization's criteria for membership, experts said.

In a statement issued in Moscow by the Russian government at the start of the Kremlin meeting, Putin told Chavez that a sharp fall in energy prices and increased oil production ran counter to Russian national interests.

He said Russia has consistently favoured a just oil price and its representatives at the OPEC meeting in September reiterated that view.

Officials in Moscow said Russia is not planning to cut oil production now but it may reduce its output after next month's meeting of the OPEC.

OPEC wants an agreement from non-member exporters to help move prices back into its $22-28/bbl target range for its reference basket of crude. The basket price dropped to a new 2-year low of $18.54 last week and the price of North Sea benchmark Brent closed the week at $21.33 on the London exchange.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are believed to have called for the 29 October meeting and are suggesting that a freeze on non-OPEC output would be the price of OPEC's continued discipline.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said that Chavez had outlined the steps OPEC was considering to maintain oil price stability in the interests of both consumers and producers, and that OPEC had not asked Russia to reduce its output.

On Sunday, Chavez promised that world oil prices would not fall further, adding that Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, the three-largest OPEC producers, had agreed to a strategy to bolster sagging prices that currently average $21.50 a barrel.

OPEC has cut production, but many non-OPEC members have not. Chavez wants prices between an average of $22 and $28 a barrel. Venezuela has already cut its output by 10 percent - 350,000 barrels a day.

Since the events of 11 September in the U.S., OPEC Basket has lost 8.5 US Dollars or one third of its value. Analysts believe that traders' attention is almost focused on the fears from a deep economic recession and even the latest American Petroleum Institute (API) data showing seven million barrels decrease in the country's oil stocks was not strong enough to support the prices.

Talks between the Iranian and Saudi oil ministers in Riyadh and the statement of President of Venezuela on the possibility of OPEC output cut before November 14 ministerial conference in Vienna did not stop weakening of prices.

On the other side, major non-OPEC oil producers have increased production, gaining unexpectedly high revenues. Some of them have been able to pay their financial obligations to the International Monetary Fund before the scheduled time.

Therefore OPEC's Ministerial Monitoring Committee in its session last Friday in Vienna decided to hold a meeting between the organizations contact grope and non-OPEC countries to analyze the market and present common proposals to deal with the current difficult situation. ENDS OPEC AND OIL PRICES 231001