Saudi Additional Cut Lifts Brent, WTI Crude Prices

By Adedapo Adesanya

Oil prices rose on Monday after the world’s top exporter, Saudi Arabia, pledged to cut production by a further 1 million barrels per day from July.

Consequently, Brent crude futures traded higher by 58 cents at $76.71 a barrel, as the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures gained 41 cents to quote at $72.15 per barrel.

The Saudi energy ministry said the kingdom’s output would drop to 9 million barrels per day in July from about 10 million barrels per day in May.

The voluntary cut, Saudi Arabia’s biggest in years, is on top of a broader deal by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies, including Russia, to limit supply into 2024 as OPEC+ seeks to boost dropping oil prices.

OPEC+ has in place cuts of 3.66 million barrels per day, amounting to 3.6 per cent of global demand, including 2 million barrels per day agreed last year and voluntary cuts of 1.66 million barrels per day agreed in April.

At Sunday’s meeting, OPEC+ said it would extend them until 2024.

Many of the OPEC+ reductions will have little real impact as lower targets for Russia, Nigeria, and Angola bring them into line with their actual production levels.

In contrast, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was allowed to raise output targets by 200,000 barrels per day to 3.22 million barrels per day to reflect its larger production capacity.

Reactions have since trailed the move, with Mr Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), saying that the chance of higher oil prices had increased sharply after the new OPEC+ deal.

Expectations were already that there would be an imbalance in the oil market in the second half of the year; now the supply-demand gap will worsen, Mr Birol said.

Goldman Sachs analysts said the output deal was “moderately bullish” for oil markets and could boost December 2023 Brent prices by between $1 and $6 a barrel, depending on how long Saudi Arabia maintains output at 9 million barrels per day.

ING left its price forecasts unchanged for now and still expects ICE Brent to be average $96 a barrel over the second half of this year.

Analysts also said Sunday’s OPEC+ decision sent a clear signal the group was willing to support prices and attempt to thwart speculators, including short sellers.