Energy News Beat Publishers Note: Should be fun watching the political discussions around the world on the OPEC + meetings today, and the impact on tomorrow’s OPEC meeting. The Energy News Beat team is looking at several influencing factors. Russia and Iran are the two wild cards. Russia wants another increase and Iran did not show up to the JCCM meetings yesterday. The Saudis need to increase their production but will hold back a bit from gaining their 1 mbd, and should be in the 650 mbd range. – As of this morning our numbers look like there is a 1.75 to 2 mbd increase with underlying political reasons. We will cover those as we get more intel.
Some key information:
Quote of the day: “Transparancy sometimes need lack of transparancy to be fully transparant”
(Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al-Saud)#OOTT pic.twitter.com/fka0LmCMPv— Hans van Cleef (@hansvancleef) March 4, 2021
OPEC opening speeches:
Saudi oil minister says there’s ‘no doubt’ the global oil market has improved https://t.co/Fl0Q32rlZy#OOTT pic.twitter.com/9001y2mC2p
— Helen Robertson (@HelenCRobertson) March 4, 2021
Oil prices dip as #Opec considers raising output by 1-2mbd #ootthttps://t.co/c0GoEPvhks
— HFT.news (@news_hft) March 4, 2021
Bloomberg -OPEC+ Silence Leaves Oil Market Guessing Next Supply Move
Saudi Arabia and Russia, leaders of group, held bilateral talks on Wednesday, seeking common ground as Riyadh urges caution and Moscow presses to raise output, a delegate said. While OPEC+ is still widely expected to revive some of the 7 million barrels a day they’ve idled, a preliminary meeting of ministers didn’t get into specifics. Delegates said several options were still on the table.
JP Morgan cited Russia’s representative on the OPEC+ technical committee, Denis Deryushkin saying that Russia saw rationale in raising output because the oil market was in a 500,000 bpd deficit. #OOTT #opec #Russia
— Amena Bakr (@Amena__Bakr) March 4, 2021
Reuters – 3:44 AM Central
Oil prices dipped on Thursday ahead of talks between OPEC and its allies on whether to ease production cuts and after a record jump in U.S. crude oil stocks following Texan refinery outages.
Brent crude futures fell 23 cents, or 0.3%, to $63.84 a barrel by 0927 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures dropped 31 cents, or 0.5% to $60.97.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies, together known as OPEC+, are considering rolling over production cuts into April instead of raising output, three OPEC+ sources told Reuters, citing the fragile nature of oil demand recovery as the coronavirus crisis continues.
The market had expected OPEC+ to ease production cuts by about 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) from April and for Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s de facto leader, to end its voluntary production cut of an additional 1 million bpd. Saudi intentions, however, remain unclear as yet.
“Prices retreated as two related questions have gone unanswered,” PVM analysts said, pointing to whether Saudi Arabia would end its voluntary reduction after March and what a potential rollover of OPEC+ cuts would mean for the rest of the quarter.
“It is still very much feasible to see an average increase of around 500,000 bpd over Q2 with an unchanged output level next month,” the analysts wrote.
Citi analysts said they expect the group to find a compromise for a nominal production increase of 500,000 bpd and for Saudi Arabia to keep its production quota at 8.256 million bpd.
In the United States, despite a record surge of more than 21 million barrels in crude oil stockpiles last week, gasoline stocks fell by the most in 30 years as refining plunged to a record low because of the Texas freeze.
Giving a floor to prices, Yemen’s Houthi forces said on Thursday that they had fired a missile at a Saudi Aramco facility in Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea city of Jeddah. There was no immediate confirmation from Saudi authorities.
