Oil Markets Remain Lackluster Despite Positive OPEC+ Meeting
Oil prices fell on Thursday, a day after OPEC+ delayed its planned output increase by three months to April 2025, and extended the full unwind of production cuts by a year until the end of 2026.
The organization also unveiled several other key decisions including the extension of baselines for all countries by a year to end-2026. Brent crude for February delivery fell 1.3% to trade at $71.16 per barrel at 11.30 am ET while WTI crude for January delivery fell 1.5% to $67.32 per barrel
And now commodity analysts at Standard Chartered have weighed in, saying the lackluster response by oil markets suggests that traders have not fully digested the impact of the new unwinding schedule by OPEC+.
According to StanChart, by both delaying the start of voluntary cut unwinds and flattening the slope of the m/m increases, the organization has effectively removed a large amount of oil from the 2025 plan.
The analysts point out that the previous plan for voluntary cut unwinds and the UAE target increase would have added a cumulative 496.3 mb to the market in 2025; however, the new schedules will now add just 191.3 mb, good for a 836 thousand barrels per day (kb/d) cut for the whole year. StanChart says the market has not priced in the full extent of how much oil has been removed from the plan.
