The cuts in the supply of crude oil announced by several OPEC+ countries, as well as the increases in oil prices that this unexpected decision has already caused, will mark the teleconference that the internal committee of the OPEC+ JMMC will hold this Monday.
According to sources from the Vienna-based Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the teleconference session of the JMMC (Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee) committee of the 23-nation group led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, a body advisory body without decision-making power, begins “around noon”.
Saudi Arabia and other countries of the OPEC+ alliance (OPEC and allies) announced on Sunday that they will jointly withdraw more than one million barrels per day from the market starting next month, a cut that comes on top of the decline of two million barrels per day. day already in cash from November 2022.
Following these announcements, Russia, which had already said in March that it would reduce its production by 0.5 million barrels per day, reported that it would extend this measure until the end of 2023, and Kazakhstan reported a voluntary cut of 78,000 barrels per day.
The new reduction, which exceeds 1.6 million barrels per day, surprised in markets where most analysts had said they did not expect OPEC+ to change production levels at this time, and drew criticism from Washington.
“We believe that these cuts are not recommended at this time, given the uncertainty of the market and we have made it clear,” a White House Security Council spokesman told Efe.
As was to be expected, “oil prices” have already reacted with sharp rises and fueled fears that energy will once again cause inflation, which remains high.
After the opening of the London futures market, the price of a barrel of Brent crude rose to 83.63 dollars, 4.8% more than at the close of Friday (79.77 dollars).
The International Energy Agency (IEA) and OPEC estimate that global oil supply will far exceed demand in the current half, while consumption will accelerate as the year progresses, reaching a record of around 102 million barrels per day.
Source: TSF
