Crude Oil Jan 21 (CL=F)
| Pre. Settlement | N/A |
| Settlement date | 2020-12-21 |
| Open | 45.90 |
| Bid | 44.93 |
| Last price | 45.71 |
| Day's range | 44.55 - 46.09 |
| Volume | 225,666 |
| Ask | 44.94 |
- Bloomberg
Oil Near $48 With OPEC+ Planning Weekend Talks on Output Cuts
(Bloomberg) -- Brent oil edged higher near $48 with market focus shifting to an OPEC+ ministerial gathering that will take place early next week.Futures, which fluctuated between gains and losses, are up about 6% this week. Saudi Arabia and Russia have convened informal OPEC+ talks for Saturday, according to a letter. That will precede the formal ministerial meetings scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, where producers will decide whether to postpone a planned output hike.Algeria, which holds the OPEC presidency, said the group must remain cautious because the organization’s internal data point to the risk of a new oil surplus emerging next year. That’s if the cartel and its allies go ahead with a supply hike.Most analysts surveyed by Bloomberg are forecasting OPEC+ will postpone the planned increase by three months to March, as the group wrestles with the impact of the coronavirus on consumption.“Without OPEC+ delaying a tapering of cuts, our fundamental balance flips into oversupply,” in the first quarter, said Helge Andre Martinsen, senior oil market analyst at DNB Bank. “Despite the vaccine-driven oil price rally in recent weeks, short-term oil market fundamentals have softened on the back of re-imposed lockdowns in Europe.”OPEC+’s agreement is expected to be in place throughout 2021 and the group will delay its planned tapering by three months, JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts including Natasha Kaneva wrote in a report. The bank says inventories will decline by 1.5 million barrels a day on average next year, though demand still won’t reach normal levels until 2022.In the short-term, there continue to be signs that demand is strong in Asia, with Chinese industrial profits rising at the fastest pace in almost nine years in October. Healthy demand had helped flip the futures curve into a bullish backwardation structure this week, indicating tight supplies.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Yahoo Finance UK
What to watch: TSB's future in question, Daily Mirror-owner pops, and AstraZeneca shares under pressure
A daily overview of the top business, market, and economic stories to watch in the UK, Europe, and abroad.
- Bloomberg
OPEC+ Calls Last-Minute Talks to Prepare for Oil-Cuts Decision
(Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabia and Russia summoned OPEC+ ministers who oversee their oil production cuts for last-minute talks on Saturday, as the cartel prepares for a decision on whether to delay January’s output increase.A clear majority of OPEC+ watchers expect the group to maintain their supply curbs at current levels for a few months longer due to lingering uncertainty about the strength of demand. However, the decision is by no means certain amid public complaints from Iraq and Nigeria, and private discord with the United Arab Emirates.The two leading members of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak and Saudi Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman, requested an informal video conference with their counterparts from the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee, which includes Algeria, Kazakhstan, Iraq, Nigeria and the UAE, according to a letter seen by Bloomberg.The unscheduled gathering comes just two days before a full OPEC ministerial meeting on Nov. 30, which will be followed by OPEC+ talks on Dec. 1. The JMMC met online as recently as Nov. 17, but that ended without any kind of recommendation about delaying the January supply increase.On Thursday, Algerian Energy Minister Abdelmadjid Attar -- who this year holds OPEC’s rotating presidency -- told Bloomberg News that the group must remain cautious because the recent surge in oil to $45 a barrel in New York this week could prove fragile.A separate meeting of a committee of OPEC technical experts considered data that pointed to the risk of a new oil surplus early next year if the cartel and its allies decide to go ahead with the production increase. The 23-nation OPEC+ coalition is scheduled to ease its 7.7 million barrels a day of production cuts by 1.9 million barrels a day from Jan. 1For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
