OPEC+ to Hold Key Policy Meeting Online and a Day Later Than Planned

The OPEC+ alliance will hold its meeting in early June a day later than initially planned and via a video conference instead of in person, OPEC said on Friday.

All meetings previously planned to take place in person in Vienna on June 1 will now be held online on June 2.

The three key meetings that will be now held via video conference are the meeting of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC), the panel monitoring market developments and potentially recommending actions to the ministers to take, the meeting of the OPEC ministers, and finally, the meeting of the ministers of the wider OPEC+ coalition.

The meetings are “expected to be smooth,” delegates told Amena Bakr, Senior Research Analyst at Energy Intelligence, on Friday.

The fact that the OPEC+ meetings will be held online suggests that the producers in the pact have more or less reached an agreement about how to proceed with the current oil production cuts, analysts say.

OPEC+ is currently keeping around 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) off the market in a deal expiring at the end of June. The alliance will decide at the meetings on June 2 whether to roll over all or part of the production cuts into the second half of the year.  

The OPEC+ group is likely to fully roll over the current cuts until the end of the year, analysts reckon, as oil prices are still rangebound, with Brent Crude stuck in the low $80s, after the slide in the past five weeks due to eased tensions in the Middle East.  

“Crude oil prices continue to drift lower, trading near a three-month low amid signs of demand weakness,” Saxo Bank said in a market commentary note early on Friday, adding that “a rollover of current production cuts remains the most likely outcome” of the OPEC+ meeting.    

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:

• Why Kinder Morgan is Targeting This Texas Oil Field
• EIA Confirms Small Crude Inventory Build, Gasoline Draw
• Gasoline Prices Ahead of Memorial Day Are 1% Higher Than a Year Ago