41.   Several OPEC oil ministers who attended that meeting said privately afterward that they feared the dispute would deflate any rally in oil prices the agreement might otherwise have brought.

42.   Separately, a former Saudi oil minister predicted oil prices could fall.

43.   That may partly explain why Ali Naimi, the Saudi oil minister, has been careful not to shut the door entirely to American companies.

44.   The agreement was reached Tuesday after only a few hours of discussion among oil ministers meeting on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

45.   The Associated Press quoted an OPEC source in Vienna as saying that oil ministers were conferring about the response to the Iraqi cutbacks.

46.   The formal meeting of the oil ministers began Friday in Vienna.

47.   The new oil minister is Ali al-Naimi, currently chairman of Aramco, the national oil company based in Dahrahn.

48.   The much-anticipated agreement was announced at the meeting of OPEC oil ministers here near the close of the oil markets in New York on Wednesday.

49.   The oil minister said Iran would not do anything to reduce the price of oil.

50.   The oil ministers said Thursday that they had agreed to keep those cuts in effect.