January 25, 1983

International OPEC members failed to agree on ways to apportion their share of a shrinking world oil market, causing a serious split among the oil ministers at their consultative meeting in Geneva. Agreement was blocked by unexpectedly insistent demands by Saudi Arabia and several of its Persian Gulf allies that settlement of a dispute over price discounting would have to precede agreement on production plans. The Saudi protest also threatened a partial agreement reached Sunday on lowering the group's maximum oil production this year to 17.5 million barrels a day. (Page A1, Column 6.) The slow pace of the talks in Lebanon on the withdrawal of foreign troops is worrying Administration officials. They are saying both publicly and privately that the sluggishness could lead to new difficulties in Israel-American relations. (A1:1.)

An emergency meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries ended today in disagreement over production quotas, raising the possibility that oil prices will decline further. Delegates said that a tentative agreement Sunday to keep OPEC's oil output to an average of 17.5 million barrels a day for the rest of this year fell apart because of Saudi Arabia's insistence that some of the other members end their practice of offering price discounts. Saudi Arabia, supported by several other oil producers along the Persian Gulf, argued that such discounts from the official OPEC price structure would have to end before the Saudis would agree to a new production ceiling. The accusations of discounting were aimed at Nigeria, Algeria, Libya and Iran, all of whom sell oil at $3 to $4 a barrel below rates based on OPEC's $34 guideline. The proposed new production ceiling - a million barrels a day below that set Ecomomists said the failure of the OPEC talks could lead to a small decline in oil prices. Page D17. Oil company shares declined by as much as $4, in part because of fears that lower prices would depress earnings. D16. Other stock prices fell broadly in heavy trading. Page D1. by OPEC in December - would have required a substantial reduction in Saudi Arabia's current production limits while benefiting Iran, which is attempting to replace Saudi Arabia as the OPEC pacesetter.

The operator of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant agreed out of court yesterday to accept $37 million in settling its suit against the manufacturer of the disabled reactor. The operator, the General Public Utilities Corporation, charged that it had suffered $4 billion in damages on March 28, 1979, in the worst accident in the history of commercial nuclear power. The settlement was reached after a trial in the suit had gone on for almost three months. The companies were reported eager to bring the trial to an end because further disclosures could damage the future of the nuclear power industry in which both parties had a large stake.

''Japan's postwar prosperity has flourished under our present Constitution, but the stormy seas which plague the world also strike relentlessly at Japan, as seen in the increasingly harsh trade friction.'' - Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone. (A4:3.)

The Soviet Union is taking soundings to apply for observer status with the organization that sets global trade policy, posing a problem for the United States and other Western powers, Reagan Administration officials reported today. The Geneva-based organization, the 88-nation Council of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, seeks to promote global prosperity through trade liberalization. David F. Demarest, an official in the Office of the United States Trade Representative, said, ''The fact that the Russians have not indicated a willingness to ultimately join GATT or adhere to GATT rules gives us some measure of concern.''