OPEC Basket Climbs 0.35% to $43.46 Per Barrel

By Adedapo Adesanya

The price of 13 crudes belonging to the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) stood at $43.46 per barrel on Friday, July 10 compared with $43.31 published the previous day, the latest OPEC Secretariat calculations disclosed.

The calculations released on Monday showed that the weighted average basket crude price of the cartel members rose 0.35 per cent, pushed by supportive data that showed that OPEC crude oil reduced by almost 2 million barrels last month, compared to the month of May.

This was welcomed as a limited oil production would translate to better prices, which hit 108 per cent compliance rate against 89 per cent a month earlier, a data released by Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA).

The OPEC Reference Basket of Crudes is made up of the following: Saharan Blend (Algeria), Girassol (Angola), Djeno (Congo), Zafiro (Equatorial Guinea), Rabi Light (Gabon), Iran Heavy (Iran), Basra Light (Iraq), Kuwait Export (Kuwait), Es Sider (Libya), Bonny Light (Nigeria), Arab Light (Saudi Arabia), Murban (UAE) and Merey (Venezuela).

In other OPEC related news, producers are expected to modestly ease the record production cuts that they agreed to in April and later extended through July.

A committee of key officials from OPEC and Russia will meet on Wednesday by video conference to discuss their approach to the market.

In April, Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, led a push that saw a 23-producer group known as OPEC+ cut its collective output by 9.7 million barrels a day, as the pandemic led to a collapse of oil demand.

Now, Saudi Arabia and most participants in the coalition support a loosening of the curbs, the so-called OPEC Plus coalition would relax its current curbs by 2 million barrels a day to 7.7 million barrels per day.

The oil-producing countries want to make sure that they maintain or increase their share of the recovering market but analysts say that the actions by OPEC and its allies could be outweighed by the impact of the pandemic on demand.