Oil prices reacted to yesterday’s OPEC+ decisions with slight losses. The Brent oil price slipped below the USD 72 per barrel mark in the morning, Commerzbank’s commodity analyst Carsten Fritsch notes.

Thursday’s OPEC+ decisions don’t shake oil markets

“The postponement of the planned production increase by a further three months had been expected. However, it came as something of a surprise that the reversal of the voluntary production cuts of 2.2 million barrels per day planned from April is set to take place over a longer period than previously thought. In addition, the voluntary cuts of 1.65 million barrels per day in place since April 2023 were extended by one year until the end of 2026.”

“This can be seen as an acknowledgement by OPEC+ that the room for increasing oil supply is very limited. Even with yesterday’s decisions, the oil market is likely to be oversupplied next year because global oil demand is likely to rise less strongly than supply outside OPEC+. As a result, there is no additional need for oil from OPEC+ on the oil market.”

“However, this would change if the supply of oil from Iran and Venezuela were to fall significantly as a result of tighter US sanctions. In this case, the currently emerging supply surplus of around 1 million barrels per day could quickly evaporate. This risk does not seem to be sufficiently taken into account by the market at present, which is why we expect the oil price to rise next year.”