VIENNA, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) daily average crude oil prices dropped to 57.41 U.S. dollars per barrel on Tuesday, 0.33 dollars lower than the prices in the previous day, the cartel's secretariat said on Wednesday.

    Due to the increase in international crude oil inventories and calm winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the OPEC daily oil prices lost its driving impetus since it reached the highest point in the last two and a half months by 59.70 U.S. dollars per barrel on Dec. 4.

    In the last six trading days, OPEC's daily average oil prices kept falling.

    According to the local media, the difference on whether to further cut the output or not still existed among OPEC member countries, which would hold ministerial conference on Dec. 14 to discuss its current output policy.

    Some member countries insisted on cutting crude output by 500,000 to 1 million barrels per day, in order to balance the supply and demand, while other member countries worried that the current oil prices was still too high.

    Marketing analysts believed that in view of that the current world crude oil supply is more than demand, world oil prices would keep dropping if OPEC's current output would not be changed.

    Some analysts also believed that the current situation in the international market would not be changed even if OPEC cut its output by 500,000 to 1 million barrels per day.

    Following its decision on Oct. 20 to slash oil output by 1.2 million bpd from Nov. 1, the OPEC daily crude oil production, excluding Iraq, in November dropped to 27 million barrels per day, 660,000 barrels lower than October's output.