Local crude oil prices continue to fall, reflecting world supply glut.

Suffering the seventh consecutive cut in just two months, prices posted for crude oil produced in Los Angeles County skidded this month to their lowest levels since July 6, 1990, some 18 months ago.

While cheery for motorists, that's more bad news for independent producers here and thousands of Angelenos with stakes in local wells.

L.A.-based Unocal Corp., for example, cut its posted prices across the board by another 50 cents a barrel this month.

That lowered Unocal's posted price to $12.80 a barrel for 29-degree-gravity crude from the Long Beach/Signal Hill field -- 48 percent below the $24.50 a barrel of a year earlier. Unocal likewise cut its price to $11.15 a barrel for 17-gravity crude from the Wilmington field -- also 48 percent below the $21.60 a barrel of a year earlier.

Among other posting companies making similar price cuts here, according to California Independent Petroleum Association: Chevron Corp., Enron Oil Trading & Transportation Co., Mobil Corp. and Texaco Inc.

The price slide here has been occurring even though West Coast inventories of crude also have been slipping, according to figures announced last week by American Petroleum Institute. West Coast crude stocks slid to 72.08 million barrels as of Jan. 17, API reported, from 74.03 million barrels a week earlier and 75.28 million barrels a year earlier.

The worldwide oil glut obviously has been affecting local crude prices more than West Coast crude inventories, a local analyst observed. The glut is blamed on members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries for producing full bore -- more than making up for shortages that had been expected from United Nations sanctions against exports from Iraq and Kuwait amid last year's Mideast crisis.

OPEC members agree they must cut their production at a meeting scheduled for Feb. 12 in Geneva. Indeed, some OPEC members voluntarily have made some cuts in production already -- 100,000 barrels daily last week by Saudi Arabia; 20,000 to 50,000 barrels daily each by Algeria, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Venezuela earlier this month.

But those were no more than tokens, for they aggregated only about 340,000 barrels daily of total OPEC production exceeding 24 million barrels daily. In fact, they were more adjustments to reflect production reality, suggested Albert J. Anton Jr., perhaps the nation's premier petroleum analyst at Carl H. Pforzheimer & Co., a New York brokerage specializing in oil.

OPEC needs to cut members' crude production by 1 million barrels daily just to "stabilize -- not improve -- the price," Anton declared. Moreover, he continued, OPEC will need to cut members' crude production another 500,000 barrels daily by spring or summer to offset Iraq's output, which is expected to be exporting 500,000 to 1 million barrels daily then.

The big problem is how those production cuts are to be shared by OPEC member-nations when their oil ministers meet Feb. 12 in Geneva. The Saudis are "adamant" about having the shared cuts based on current production rates, not some previous formula, Anton emphasized.

That means Saudi Arabia is willing to accept as its share only one-third of any OPEC production cuts, he said. The Saudis presently are producing about 8.5 million barrels daily (constituting about 35 percent of current OPEC output) vs. 5.5 million prewar (24.5 percent of pre-war OPEC production), Anton noted.

If OPEC member-nations can agree to cut their production by an aggregate of 1 million barrels daily effective March 1, he said, it can "hold crude prices at their current range." Even so, Anton forecasts a dip of $2 a barrel by summer, and prices "could plunge if Iraq comes in with 1 million barrels."

While such a scenario may be pleasing to motorists and truckers, it horrifies independent producers here who heard from a local speech this month by Gene Ames a forecast of what low petroleum prices will do. The chairman of Independent Petroleum Association of America warned the result of today's low prices will be:

* A rapidly declining domestic energy sector.

* Increased imports and reliance for future energy needs on unstable sources of oil.

* The mortgaging of the nation's energy future through acceptance of cheap energy prices today for a bleak energy picture tomorrow.