OPEC + will discuss the possibility of raising its oil production levels at the next meeting, OPEC + sources told Reuters on Wednesday.
The group will meet on March 4, where it will discuss increasing production to half a million barrels a day from April, sources said.
Currently, OPEC + members are suppressing oil production by more than 7 million barrels a day, but with oil prices now on the rise and markets having the idea that the market could be hardening, l OPEC + may consider easing the reins.
The last meeting of the OPEC + Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee met in the first week of February and ended without many surprises. For the month of February, an additional 75,000 bpd was added to the quotas: 65,000 bpd in Russia and 10,000 bpd in Kazakhstan. During the month of March, production quotas fell again by 75,000 bpd, again in Russia (65,000 bpd) and Kazakhstan (10,000 bpd).
But Saudi Arabia had announced in January that it would voluntarily cut an additional million in its quota in February and March.
Saudi Arabia has not pledged to cut this million additional barrels beyond March, so it is very possible that this OPEC + meeting will end with 1.5 million additional barrels added to the mix: 500,000 bpd additional added to production quotas and an additional one million bpd from Saudi Arabia.
Oil markets have improved in recent weeks, with crude inventories in the world’s most visible oil market, the United States, finally returning to their five-year average. Brent oil prices have risen to above $ 67 a barrel, and the WTI traded above $ 63 on Wednesday afternoon. This is the highest level of the price of oil in a year.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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