Oil prices continue to fall on Monday as traders await the meeting of OPEC+ ministers, which was postponed from November 26 to November 30.
The cost of January futures for Brent on the London ICE Futures exchange as of 7:20 a.m. amounted to $79.85 per barrel, which is $0.73 (0.91%) lower than at the close of the previous session. On Friday, the price of these contracts fell by $0.84 (1%) to $80.58 per barrel.
January futures for WTI in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) fell by $0.73 (0.97%) to $74.81 per barrel by this time. As a result of the previous trading, the value of these contracts fell by $1.56 (2%) to $75.54 per barrel.
Last week, Brent fell by less than 0.1%, WTI – by 0.7%, and both contracts ended in the red for the fifth week in a row.
According to media reports, the postponement of the OPEC+ ministerial meeting was due to disagreements within the group, in particular, the desire of Angola and Nigeria to increase production, while Saudi Arabia continues to voluntarily limit production.
These reports have eased traders’ fears of an even more significant reduction in OPEC+ production, Market Watch notes.
“Saudi Arabia is probably still ready to take on the lion’s share of the supply cuts needed to stabilize the oil market,” said Barbara Lambrecht, commodities analyst at Commerzbank. – “It therefore seems more or less obvious that the kingdom will continue to limit production in the first quarter, as the recent price decline has shown that it will suffer losses otherwise. The question is whether OPEC+ will be able to agree on additional cuts.”
