OPEC+ maintains modest monthly increases in oil output

OPEC and allied oil-producing countries have decided to maintain the amount of oil they pump to the world even as the new omicron variant casts a spikey shadow of uncertainty over the global economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Officials from OPEC countries, led by Saudi Arabia, and their allies, led by Russia, voted Thursday to stick with a pre-omicron pattern of steady, modest monthly increases in oil releases — a pace that has frustrated the United States and other oil-consuming nations as gasoline prices rise.

Before Omicron’s appearance, the meeting had been shaping up as a potentially fraught moment in a growing dispute between oil-supplying nations and oil-consuming ones, as the economy rebounds from the worst of the pandemic and demand for oil surged.