The meeting comes as promising coronavirus vaccines have pushed up oil prices which crossed the $48 per barrel threshold for Brent crude benchmark over the past week. The price of OPEC oil basket was higher than $46 per barrel on the last day of the week. However, demand for oil remains weak.
At its 180th meeting, OPEC ministers will deal with the UAE’s push to increase its OPEC+ production quota and Nigeria’s call for its baseline figure to be reviewed as the country classifies its Agbami stream as condensate, and the challenge of incompliance of countries like Iraq and Nigeria as well as Libya’s ramped up oil output to over 1.2 million barrels per day.
Extension of the current OPEC output cut agreement (7.6 million barrels) for a three-month period is one of the most outstanding issues for OPEC and its allies to consider in the upcoming meeting. The odds are that this scenario will be endorsed at OPEC conference.