The OPEC+ alliance of major oil producers is scheduled to meet virtually Thursday of this week, and oil market-watchers have been pondering what the group will decide. Below, two of Rigzone’s regular panelists offer their perspectives on the much-anticipated online gathering.
Barani Krishnan, Senior Commodities Analyst, Investing.com: How the Saudis are going to manage the expectations of the 22 other countries who are in the OPEC+ grouping with them, when the alliance meets this week. Some, led by Russia, are already impatient of generating additional revenue for their coffers at these prices and the only way would be to add a million barrels or two as a whole to production. The Saudis, of course, know what that would do: shave between $5 and $10 off a barrel.
Jon Donnel, Managing Director, B. Riley Advisory Services: Commodities traders will be attuned to the upcoming OPEC+ meetings, with early indications that the group is willing to add incremental production back into the market in August. Crude storage levels have continued to decline, in no small part due to disciplined capital spending by U.S. producers. Consensus was for overall production levels to be held flat at year end 2020 exit rates of 11 million barrels per day, and that forecast has proved to be prescient over the first half of the year. U.S. operators have done an admirable job of “controlling what they can control,” putting the industry in relatively good standing despite the myriad of challenges faced.
