Tag: opec

The Indian equity markets corrected yesterday(25th November 2020) after hitting a lifetime high earlier in the day. The benchmark Nifty50 index ended with losses of around 200 points, the biggest one-day fall in nearly a month. This sharp reversal was attributed to a rally in crude oil prices. On Wednesday, Brent crude price hit an eight-month high of $48 to a barrel as traders bet on a faster-than-expected recovery in energy demand and a likely production cut by members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) and Russia later this month. Some analysts believe higher crude oil prices could significantly increase India’s energy import bill creating pressure on the current account balance, apart from raising input costs for companies in sectors ranging from metals and mining, chemicals, paints, personal care, cement, petrochemical, plastics, and agro-chemicals. Read more

Oil prices rose today(5th June 2020) after OPEC decided to move up discussions on whether to extend record production cuts to 6th June (Saturday), indicating that some laggard countries may have agreed to align themselves with the deal. Brent crude futures were up 95 cents, or 2.4 percent, at $40.94 a barrel as of 0920 GMT, after rising over $1 to $41.18. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 64 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $38.05 a barrel. Brent has risen 16 percent since Friday to reach a three-month high, settling in a range more comfortable for producers like Russia. The contract has more than doubled since it crashed to as little as $15.98 a barrel on April 22nd. Read more

At the last meeting of OPEC in December, the producers agreed to cut production by 500,000 barrels per day, with Saudi Arabia offering a further 400,000 barrels of "voluntary" cuts. Prices were under pressure at that point from abundant reserves and weak global growth. The cuts announced in December initially had the desired effect of an uptick in prices but the outbreak of Coronavirus has since sent them plunging back down again. The OPEC meets on5th March (Thursday) in Vienna to analyse how to react to a sharp drop in global oil demand due to the outbreak of the coronavirus. The extraordinary two-day meeting will see OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, and its allies in the so-called OPEC+ group -- foremost among them Russia -- discuss how to halt the sharp fall in oil prices in the past two months as the epidemic has spread.