Bracing for a Showdown

As OPEC struggles to avoid a price war, gold sinks and Wall Street soars

For the feuding members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the time had come for another showdown. Oil ministers from eight of the 13 OPEC countries gathered last week in London's elegant Grosvenor Square at a five-story, red-brick Georgian mansion where the delegate from the United Arab Emirates, Sheik Mani Said al-Oteiba, maintains his residence. The meeting had an urgent mission: agreement on a pricing pact and a set of production quotas that would keep the cost of oil from tumbling uncontrollably. Over the previous weekend Saudi...