Oil Down, Investors Await Crucial OPEC+ Meeting
By Administrator_ India
Oil was down Monday morning in Asia, with investors on tenterhooks ahead of a crucial OPEC and allies (OPEC+) meeting later in the day.
Brent oil futures inched down 0.07% to $76.12 by 12:25 AM ET (4:25 AM GMT), after falling to its first weekly decline in six during the previous week. WTI futures also inched down 0.07% to $75.11.
The latest meeting comes as the cartel voted to increase production by about 2 million barrels a day from August to December 2021, as well as extend the remaining output cuts to the end of 2022, on Friday.
However, the United Arab Emirates has raised objections to the vote results, in a rare public dispute that could see a price crash like the one that followed a Saudi Arabia-Russia price war in April 2020. National interests are also increasingly playing into the picture, with oil users wanting to see more supply in the market as their economies recover from COVID-19.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., Baker Hughes Co said in its report on Friday that the number of oil and natural gas rigs was up by 5 to 475 in the week to Jul. 2, the most since April 2020. This early indicator of future output rose for the third week out of the past four.
