VIENNA, December 4. /TASS/. OPEC+ ministers will hold another meeting on Sunday to discuss a further oil production plan. Initially the meeting was scheduled to take place in person in Vienna, however, at the beginning of the week the ministers decided to meet via videoconference.
As Bloomberg and Reuters reported, the OPEC+ countries are likely to decide to maintain the current plan for oil production, which was agreed at the last meeting in October. At that time, the alliance decided to cut production by 2 million barrels per day starting on November. The US criticized the decision made by OPEC+. Thus, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the alliance's decision potentially ‘go up to further line’ the pockets of Russia, and could also mean support for the country’s special military operation in Ukraine. However, OPEC+ ministers argued that the production cuts were purely economic in nature.
In mid-November, The Wall Street Journal, citing OPEC delegates, reported that Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries were discussing the possibility of making a decision to increase oil production under the OPEC+ agreement by 500,000 barrels per day at the December meeting. The journal noted that an increase in production could help overcome difficulties with the US. But a few hours later, the Ministry of Energy of Saudi Arabia issued a denial of this information, stating that OPEC+, if necessary, may take further measures to reduce production to balance supply and demand. Similar statements were made by representatives of other OPEC countries, including the UAE, Kuwait and Algeria.
Waiting for price ceiling and embargo on Russian oil
The December OPEC+ meeting will take place on the eve of the EU’s embargo on offshore oil supplies from Russia and the start of the price cap. The measures come into effect starting on December 5. What is interesting is that the EU countries have finally decided on the level of the price cap on Russian oil only on Friday night: it will be $60 per barrel. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak has repeatedly stated that Russia would not supply oil to countries that would support the price cap, even if it would be more profitable.
Reuters quoted OPEC+ delegates as saying that at the upcoming meeting of the alliance countries would assess the impact of EU restrictive measures against Russian oil on the global market. The issue was not discussed at Saturday's meeting of the OPEC countries in the videoconference format, a source in one of the delegations told TASS. According to him, OPEC ministers only touched upon internal administrative issues of the organization.
Upcoming OPEC+ meeting
The OPEC+ meeting will traditionally be held in two stages. First, at 14:00 Moscow time, the OPEC+ Monitoring Committee meeting will begin, where representatives of the eight countries participating in the agreement will gather. The Committee's work is administered by Russia and Saudi Arabia, the largest participants of the agreement in terms of production volumes. The session of the Monitoring Committee will be followed by a Ministerial Meeting of all the 23 OPEC+ countries, which is scheduled to start at 15:00 Moscow time.
Usually, on the eve of the Ministerial Meeting of the OPEC+ countries, the alliance's Joint Technical Committee holds a meeting to assess oil market development scenarios. The report of the Technical Committee is the basis for assessment of the situation at the meeting of the Ministerial Monitoring Committee. This time the meeting of the OPEC Joint Technical Committee was scheduled for December 2, but, according to a source in one of the delegations, was canceled. The source did not specify the reason for the cancellation.