OPEC+ is set to raise its oil output goal by 100,000 barrels per day, an amount analysts said was a setback to U.S. President Joe Biden after his trip to Saudi Arabia to ask the producer group’s leader to pump more to help the United States and the global economy.
The increase, equivalent to 0.1% of global demand, follows weeks of speculation that Biden’s trip to the Middle East and Washington’s clearance of missile defence system sales to Riyadh and the United Arab Emirates will bring more oil to the world market. “That is so little as to be meaningless. From a physical standpoint, it is a marginal blip. As a political gesture, it is almost insulting,” said Raad Alkadiri, managing director for energy, climate, and sustainability at Eurasia Group.
The increase of 100,000 bpd will be one of the smallest since OPEC+ quotas were introduced in 1982, OPEC data shows. “This is a smaller increase but an increase nonetheless,” Amos Hochstein, senior U.S. State Department adviser for energy security, told CNN. Hochstein said OPEC had already delivered larger increases in two of the three previous months. “I think we’re focused much more on the bottom line, and that is reducing the price of oil in the market,” Hochstein said, adding that U.S. gasoline prices fell well below $4 per gallon. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, led by Russia, a group known as OPEC+ that formed in 2017, had been increasing production by about 430,000-650,000 bpd a month, as they unwound record supply cuts introduced when pandemic lockdowns choked off demand.
Source: This news is originally published by reuters