Oil prices fell on Friday as OPEC discussed a potential exemption from cutting output for Iran and as the producer club sought to get heavyweight supplier Russia on board. <\/p>\n
International Brent crude oil futures fell below $60 per barrel, trading at $59.53 per barrel at 0750 GMT, down 53 cents, or 0.9 percent from their last close.<\/p>\n
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $51.05 per barrel, down 44 cents, or 0.9 percent.<\/p>\n
The declines came after crude slumped by almost 3 percent the previous day, with the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) ending a meeting at its headquarters in Vienna, Austria, on Thursday without announcing a decision to cut crude supply.<\/p>\n
There was also still discussion around Iran seeking an exemption from any cuts amid U.S. sanctions which already reduced its exports, OPEC delegates told Reuters.<\/p>\n
OPEC also wants to get Russia on board with cuts. Russia wants to cut its oil output by a maximum of 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) for the first three months of 2019, RIA news agency cited a source as saying on Friday.<\/p>\n
Analysts expect OPEC to cut more than Russia, but warn that a big cut will be needed to reverse recent price falls.<\/p>\n
“Reversing the overwhelmingly bearish price sentiment will likely require a credible and cohesive message from the OPEC meeting. Even a 1 million bpd cut could lead to a ‘sell the news’ reaction in the short term,” U.S. investment bank Jefferies said on Friday.<\/p>\n
“If no agreement is reached, oil prices have significant downside,” it added.<\/p>\n
SUPPLY SURGE, PRICE PLUNGE<\/p>\n
Oil producers have been hit by a 30-percent plunge in crude prices since October as supply surges just as the demand outlook weakens amid a global economic slowdown.<\/p>\n
Oil output from the world’s biggest producers – OPEC, Russia and the United States – has increased by 3.3 million bpd since the end of 2017, to 56.38 million bpd, meeting almost 60 percent of global consumption.<\/p>\n
That increase alone is equivalent to the output of major OPEC producer the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n
The surge is largely down to soaring U.S. crude oil production, which has jumped by 2.5 million bpd since early 2016 to a record 11.7 million bpd, making the United States the world’s biggest oil producer.<\/p>\n
As a result, the United States last week exported more crude oil and fuel than it imported for the first time on records going back to 1973, according to data released on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oil prices fell on Friday as OPEC discussed a potential exemption from cutting output for Iran and as the producer club sought to get heavyweight supplier Russia on board. International Brent crude oil futures fell below $60 per barrel, trading at $59.53 per barrel at 0750 GMT, down 53 cents, or 0.9 percent from their last close. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $51.05 per barrel, down 44 cents, or 0.9 percent. The declines came after crude slumped by almost 3 percent the previous day, with the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) ending a meeting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oil-gas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}