Texan’s Plan to Meet With OPEC Raises Questions

WASHINGTON —  A suggestion that Texas may cut production and cooperate with OPEC to shore up oil prices raises serious antitrust questions and would not be in the country’s best interests, oil analysts and Reagan Administration officials said Thursday.

“You can imagine what the Reagan Administration thinks about it,” said a State Department official who spoke only on condition of anonymity. interests.”

Doug Elmets, press aide to Energy Secretary John Herrington, said, “It’s the department’s belief and the government’s policy that assistance to OPEC in its effort to manipulate the price of oil is not the correct approach.”

Kent Hance, one of three members of the Texas Railroad Commission, met earlier this month with Rilwanu Lukman, the president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, and discussed the possibility that his state and the cartel would cooperate.