OPEC+ ministers agree to deeper cuts, but only until March
By Alexander Bueso
Date: Thursday 05 Dec 2019
(Sharecast News) - Energy ministers from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its key allies have agreed on deeper oil output cuts to stem a near-term glut of oil.
However, the new cuts would only extend through the end of the first quarter of 2020, instead of the June or end-2020 date that some OPEC ministers had been calling for.
According to the Russian Federation's energy minister, Alexander Novak, a panel of his peers, including that of Saudi Arabia, had agreed to recommend a further half a million barrel a day reduction in OPEC+ countries' combined output, bringing the total amount of cuts to 1.7m barrels a day or roughly 1.7% of the world's available supplies.
OPEC+, the grouping of producer nations that includes key allies such as Russia and Kazhakstan, agreed in December 2018 to reduce its combined oil output by 1.2m b/d in the first half of 2019.
In July, that deal was extended until 31 March 2020.
Some analysts had expected that Saudi, in particular, would be reluctant to sign up to deeper cuts as it was already shouldering a disproportionate share of the previous round of cuts and had therefore seen its share of the market decline.
As of 1717 GMT, front month Brent crude oil futures were trading 0.82% higher at $63.51 a barrel on the ICE.
Earlier during the same session, Riyadh had priced the upcoming flotation of state-owned oil champion, Saudi Aramco, at the top end of its proposed range, netting it $25.6bn.
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