By Adedapo Adesanya
The Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will meet on Wednesday, August 19, 2020.
The aim of the meeting is to assess compliance with quotas and recommend any adjustments to the cuts if needed and engage on the way forward for the oil market.
On Monday, a panel of technical experts known as the Joint Task Committee (JTC) is reviewing the deal between OPEC and its allies, known as OPEC+ as the group started to return some crude supply to the market this month after reductions in the last three months.
The meeting is coming at a time when the market has started to weaken over demand worries and rising supply caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Oil has largely held above $40 per barrel in recent weeks as weakness in the dollar has helped support headline prices and data from the US government has played its part but this only help in the short term.
OPEC+ is planning to return about 1.5 million barrels a day to the market this month after trimming roughly 10 per cent of global supply following a crash in demand due to the pandemic.
Major laggard, Iraq, has also made its strongest commitment and it’s yet to implement deep output cuts, including deeper cuts in the coming months to compensate for missing previous targets. Meanwhile, Nigeria another laggard, made promises to meet its quota, something it has not been doing well.
The market will be looking forward to the meeting which may provide a good outlook for the commodity.
As at Friday, August 14, the price of OPEC basket of 13 crudes stood at $44.62 a barrel compared with $45.34 of the previous day, according to OPEC Secretariat calculations released today.
The OPEC Reference Basket of Crudes (ORB) is made up of the following: Saharan Blend (Algeria), Girassol (Angola), Djeno (Congo), Zafiro (Equatorial Guinea), Rabi Light (Gabon), Iran Heavy (Islamic Republic of Iran), Basra Light (Iraq), Kuwait Export (Kuwait), Es Sider (Libya), Bonny Light (Nigeria), Arab Light (Saudi Arabia), Murban (UAE) and Merey (Venezuela).
The OPEC JMMC is under the Chairmanship of Prince Abdul Aziz bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy, and co-Chaired by Mr Alexander Novak, Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation.