OPEC and its non-OPEC allies, known collectively as OPEC+, decided to raise its output target by 400,000 barrels per day from next month. The move had been broadly expected given U.S. pressure to boost supply and no major new Covid restrictions.
Led by OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC leader Russia, the energy alliance is in the process of unwinding record supply cuts of roughly 10 million barrels per day. The historic production cut was put in place in April 2020 to help the energy market after the coronavirus pandemic cratered demand for crude.
“Oil prices are still hovering around $80 a barrel, that’s probably higher than what [U.S. President] Joe Biden wants,” Herman Wang, managing editor of OPEC and Middle East news at S&P Global Platts, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe” on Tuesday.
And then you look at the resilience of the market so far to the omicron variant, which OPEC, of course, has dismissed as mild and short-lived. So, there’s a lot of optimism around what demand is going to do even though there are these predictions of looming oversupply in the first quarter,” Wang said.
“I think we are going to look for OPEC+ to continue with their 400,000 barrel per day increase at this meeting. What they are going to do at the February meeting and the March meeting, that is a problem for another time.” CNBC