VIENNA — Saudi Arabia won over fellow OPEC members to agree to a new production ceiling for the first time in three years as the prospect of a global recession brought unity to the group after a failed meeting six months ago.

Oil futures in New York fell 5.2 percent Wednesday, the most since Sept. 22, after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries signaled it's prepared to allow Saudi Arabia, the biggest member, to keep pumping crude at near the highest rate in at least 30 years, while increasing its combined output limit to 30 million barrels a day.

"Saudi Arabia profits the most" from this deal, said Eugen Weinberg, the head of commodities research at Commerzbank in Frankfurt, Germany. "They don't need to cut, and they're re-established within OPEC because it was their idea and OPEC followed."

Wednesday's agreement underscores how some OPEC members are concerned oil at about $100 a barrel may sap demand amid signs Europe's debt crisis is driving the world toward a recession.

A quota more closely aligned with actual supply levels gives the group a baseline from which to cut production if the economy deteriorates further in 2012, according to Mike Wittner, the head of oil-market research at Société Générale.

OPEC's previous meeting June 8 broke up without a consensus when six members including Venezuela and Iran opposed a formal plan backed by Saudi Arabia to pump more oil to compensate for the disruption to Libyan exports. It was the first time in at least 20 years that the group failed to reach an agreement.

Saudi Arabia responded by boosting supply regardless.

Before Wednesday's agreement, OPEC's output ceiling was 24.845 million barrels a day and applied to every one of the 12 members except Iraq, which was exempt as it rebuilt its economy after the U.S.-led ouster of Saddam Hussein. Iraq will be subject to the limits for the first time since 1998, the group said yesterday.

"There was a need to get the organization back to a point where it could manage the potential for a substantial production cut, which would largely be predicated on a euro collapse or something of that nature," Jamie Webster, a Washington, D.C.-based analyst at PFC Energy, said in an interview in Vienna.

Crude oil for January delivery closed Wednesday at $94.95 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest level since Nov. 4. Prices have gained 3.9 percent this year, after climbing 15 percent in 2010.

OPEC won't use specific national production targets for its 12 members as long as Libyan exports are recovering from the country's armed conflict, said Secretary-General Abdalla el-Badri.

"We really cannot have individual quotas at this time because Libya is out," el-Badri said in an interview after the OPEC meeting.

"When Libya is back, then we will have some allocation. I hope in June we will discuss it."

Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi, whose country boosted production to more than 10 million barrels a day in November, said before the meeting that he expected a "great agreement."

He had described OPEC's June meeting as "the worst" he had ever attended.

"Saudi's rise in production is temporary," Harry Tchilinguirian, the head of commodity-market strategy at BNP Paribas in London, said by email.

"Some of the increase in production in November is going toward filling newly built strategic storage in China, so it essentially will remain off market and thus will have little implication on price."

Iraq ready to start

new oil terminal

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iraq plans to start operations at the first of four new offshore terminals for tankers "in days" as OPEC's third-largest producer sets its next energy-licensing round for March 7-8 in Baghdad, an Oil Ministry official said Wednesday.

Iraq holds the fifth-biggest natural-gas reserves in the Middle East and the world's fifth-largest crude deposits, according to BP data that include Canadian oil sands.

Iraq has signed 15 gas and oil licenses since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted President Saddam Hussein.

The first of four single-point mooring facilities off the coast of southern Iraq will add 900,000 barrels a day of exporting capacity for crude, said Abdul Mahdy al-Ameedi, director-general of the Iraqi Oil Ministry's licensing department. Three more offshore export terminals with similar capacity are due to start operating within months.

Iraq exported crude at an average rate of 2.135 million barrels a day in November, Falah Al-Amri, the director of the State Oil-Marketing Organization, said Dec. 1.

— Bloomberg News