..as oil price returns to $90
The meeting of OPEC on Wednesday was unusually brief but productive as the group within 30 minutes decide to up production level by 400,000 barrels per day for the month of March.
In response to this action, the price of crude oil went back to $90 per barrel
The ministers of the OPEC+ alliance, who met via video conference, rubberstamped in just 16 minutes the monthly production hike of 400,000 bpd for March. Some analysts, and possibly traders, had expected a higher production increase, considering the recent rally in oil prices to $90 that has surely frustrated major oil-consuming nations, including the United States.
Earlier this week, Goldman Sachs had expressed the view that OPEC+ might decide to announce a larger production increase for March than the usual 400,000 bpd, considering the oil price rally to $90 and the potential for renewed discontent from major oil importers at these high price levels.
OPEC+, however, confirmed the 400,000-bpd increase in record time and didn’t even plan a press conference after the meeting.
Brent Crude prices returned to $90 per barrel just after news of the modest production increase and the record-short meeting broke.
While the nominal increase is modest, as in the previous seven months, many producers within the OPEC+ group are struggling to pump to their quotas, leaving an increasingly large gap between production increase on paper and actual growth in output, which leaves the market tighter than many analysts and forecasters had anticipated just a few months ago.
Going forward, the market will be closely looking at how much of that increase OPEC+ can actually deliver, considering that half of its members have lagged in ramping up output to their quotas so far, while more producers—with few exceptions such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE—will be struggling to raise production.
