DOHA, Qatar — Officials from 18 oil-producing nations failed on Sunday to reach a deal to freeze oil production at current levels.

The officials, who represented most of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries as well as Russia, seemed to head into the meeting full of confidence that a deal to stabilize the oil markets could be reached. Instead, the talks dragged into the evening before Qatar’s energy minister, Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada, told a news conference that the group had been unable to reach agreement.

“The meeting concluded that we all need time for further consultation,” Mr. Sada said. He said “that participating countries will consult among themselves and with others” until the next meeting, which is scheduled for June.

In what seemed to be an effort to sugarcoat the failure, Mr. Sada said that market fundamentals had improved since the idea of a freeze was first broached by Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela at a meeting here in Doha in February. But market participants are likely to take a negative view of the major producers not even being able to reach a deal to hold production at its current high levels.

A major stumbling block appears to have been pressure from Saudi Arabia for Iran to participate in the freeze. The Iranians, who are rapidly increasing production after the end of most sanctions over their nuclear program, have refused to cap production at current low levels.

Analysts thought that a way could be found to allow for the Iranian increases, but Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who has become the crucial power broker in the country, appears to have reduced the room for maneuver with statements making Saudi participation contingent on full compliance.

The idea of a freeze in production emerged in February, after oil prices had plunged below $30 per barrel. OPEC members had been unable to agree on production cuts to manage the market. Instead, most members pumped oil at full capacity, trying to maximize revenues amid falling prices. The idea of a freeze gained favor because it would involve little or no sacrifice for anyone. Analysts credit the prospect of a freeze with helping to lift prices. Brent crude, the international benchmark, is now about $43 per barrel.

Analysts say the producers hoped that the freeze would hold market participants’ attention until later this year, when demand for oil is widely expected to begin catching up with supply. “It is buying time,” said Bill Farren-Price, chief executive of Petroleum Policy Intelligence, a British market research firm, who was observing the meeting.

The oil market has gone through a profound transformation in recent years, largely because of the rise of production from shale rock formations in the United States. That boom helped the United States increase oil production by the equivalent of the output of a couple of medium-sized OPEC countries, like Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, undercutting what leverage the cartel had over oil prices.

Analysts say that OPEC’s efforts to involve Russia and other outsiders in managing the oil market are evidence of the group’s diminished clout. Joining with Russia is “what is left for an organization that has lost its core reason for being, at least for now and possibly for the longer term,” said Bhushan Bahree, an OPEC analyst at the market research firm IHS, who was observing the meeting. “They are trying to bring in more sources of supply, involving more people in the conversation,” he said.

In fact, Saudi Arabia may be drifting away from market-management tactics, analysts say. In the days before this meeting, a mixed message has been emerging from Saudi Arabia, with its 80-year-old veteran oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, evidently seeking accommodation with other big producers, including Iran, while Prince Mohammed, who has become the kingdom’s chief policy maker, has been indicating that Saudi Arabia might not go along with a freeze if Iran does not also comply.

“If all major producers don’t freeze production, we will not freeze production,” Prince Mohammed told Bloomberg News recently.

The Saudis, analysts say, increasingly seem to accept that oil prices are no longer something they can control. Prince Mohammed, who has authority over the Saudi , warned that the kingdom could increase production by a million barrels per day in the coming months if it chose.

With low production costs, estimated at $3.50 to $5 per barrel, Saudi Arabia can compete on price with any producer. So can Russia, which can produce oil for about $4 per barrel, according to IHS. While Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf allies, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, are feeling the pinch of lower revenues, they are in far less immediate trouble than OPEC members like Venezuela and Algeria, analysts say.

While plans are far from fully delineated, Prince Mohammed appears to be charting a more independent course for the Saudi oil industry. For instance, he has said he plans a public listing of the national oil company, Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil-producing company. A public listing might require the company to pay more attention to the requirements of outside investors rather than other OPEC members.

“This is the new world of oil,” said Jim Burkhard, head of oil markets and scenarios research at IHS, who was also observing the meeting. “The oil market is a reflection of the world. Power is more decentralized.”

Some analysts speculate that Mr. al-Naimi — who has long been skeptical that other producers, including Russia, would honor production ceilings — is going along with the idea of a freeze to help insulate Saudi Arabia from criticism that it is not trying to address low prices.

The Saudis might have been “covering their backs,” said Paul Stevens, an analyst at Chatham House, a London-based research organization. “They can say, ‘We tried.’ ”

Russia, which vies with Saudi Arabia for the title of the world’s largest oil producer, has plenty of reason to go along with a freeze. Russia’s economy, which depends heavily on oil revenues, is in recession. The Kremlin’s desperation for higher prices is palpable, with the country committed to two wars, in Ukraine and Syria. At home, wages are being cut, bringing early signs of social unrest ahead of a parliamentary election in September.

Russia’s energy minister, Aleksandr Novak, who attended the Doha meeting, has been a crucial supporter of a freeze and agreed at a meeting in Doha in February to try to bring others into the fold. A key role assigned to Mr. Novak was to bring in Iran, but he appears to have failed.

Russia and Saudi Arabia trade places for the top spot among oil producers. Russia has been in the lead of late, pumping 10.9 million barrels of oil a day in January compared with Saudi Arabia’s 10.2 million. But because of Russia’s larger population and industrial base, it consumes more oil at home, leaving Saudi Arabia the leader in exports.

Since the Soviet period, OPEC has looked on Russia as a freeloader on price-boosting production cuts: Russia benefited but never joined in, citing technical problems of closing wells bored into permafrost and high capital outlays for pipelines in Eurasia. But Russia may not have to make any sacrifice to go along with a freeze. Oil production is at a post-Soviet high and is not expected to go much higher in the short term.

Bashneft, a second-tier Russian oil company that is majority-owned by the government, is the only producer with significant output growth expected this year. Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, are projecting small declines this year, of 1.6 percent and 3.6 percent, respectively.

Because they are paid in dollars but conduct their domestic business in the battered ruble, Russia’s oil majors made lots of cash even as the dollar price of oil fell. Russia’s government is considering new taxes that could curb output in Russia over the long term, but these are not likely to be imposed soon enough to affect global prices in the immediate future.

Some of the less well-off oil producers clearly wanted a deal in hopes that it would raise prices and revenues. “This is something that effects the whole oil industry whether you are in OPEC or not,” Ecuador’s oil minister, Carlos Pareja Yannuzzelli told reporters on Sunday.