OPEC+ plans new output policy meeting today, sources say

MOSCOW/DUBAI: OPEC+ ministers plan to hold their next meeting today (Sunday) to decide on output policy, three sources within the producers’ group told Reuters.

The development comes after Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) reached a compromise last week in a dispute over OPEC+ policy, in a move that should unlock a deal to supply more crude to a tight oil market and cool soaring prices.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, along with Russia and other allies, a group known as OPEC+, still needs to take a final decision on output policy after talks earlier this month were abandoned because of the dispute between Saudi and the UAE.

OPEC could not be reached for comment outside regular business hours.

Sunday’s meeting will be held virtually as have all such discussions since last year.

OPEC+ last year agreed record output cuts of almost 10 million barrels per day (bpd) to cope with a pandemic-induced slump in demand, curbs which have been gradually relaxed since then and now stand at about 5.8 million bpd.

The dispute between Riyadh and the UAE spilled into the open after previous OPEC+ talks, with both airing concerns about details of a proposed deal that would have added an extra 2 million bpd to the market and extended the pact until end of 2022.

The objective was to ease upward pressure on oil prices that have recently climbed to 2-1/2 year highs.

One OPEC+ source said last week Riyadh had agreed to Abu Dhabi’s request to have UAE’s baseline – the level from which cuts under the OPEC+ agreement on supply curbs are calculated – set at 3.65 million bpd from April 2022, up from 3.168 million.