OPEC agrees to cut oil output

Leaders in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) agreed on a preliminary deal Wednesday to cut oil output for the first time in eight years.

{mosads}After two days of talks in Algeria, the cartel agreed to set production as low as 32.5 million barrels a day, a decrease of about 750,000 barrels from current levels, Bloomberg News reported, citing delegates to the talks.

OPEC would still need to formally vote on the limits and fine-tune them for individual countries, likely by November.

It would be the first cut mandated by OPEC since the oil price crash that started two years ago. The crash was due mostly to a glut in supply and weak demand. Despite repeated calls from major oil producers to cut production and try to increase prices, the cartel struggled to reach a deal.

Oil prices rose more than 6 percent Wednesday after the unexpected production limit deal, and stock prices for major oil companies rose as well.