Oil dips ahead of OPEC+ meeting that may yield big output cut

Oil slipped following a two-day surge ahead of an OPEC+ meeting at which the alliance may agree on its biggest production cut since 2020 to revive faltering prices.

West Texas Intermediate fell to trade near $86 a barrel after jumping almost 9% over the previous two sessions. The cartel is set to discuss reducing output by as much as 2 million barrels a day, delegates said before the group meets in Vienna later Wednesday. That’s double the volume previously flagged.

A cut of that magnitude would reflect the scale of concern from the alliance about the outlook for energy demand in the face of rapidly tightening monetary policy. The US benchmark recently capped its first quarterly loss in two years after giving up all the gains made after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“A 2-million-barrel a day cut would reveal how aggressive they are about buoying prices,” said Vishnu Varathan, the Asia head of economics and strategy at Mizuho Bank in Singapore. A reduction of 1 million to 1.5 million barrels would be an “easy call” for OPEC+ because the alliance is under-producing around those levels, he added.

Saudi Arabia may also announce an extra voluntary cut in its own oil output, potentially augmenting a group-wide agreement to curb supply, RBC Capital Markets said in a note. Riyadh has made additional production moves on several occasions since December 2016.

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies may also discuss a slightly smaller cut of 1.5 million barrels a day, said delegates. Even a reduction of that size is likely to draw criticism from the US and other major oil-consuming nations, which have been battling energy-driven inflation.

“I think we’re setting up for a buy-the-rumor, sell-the-fact situation,” Carley Garner, the founder of DeCarley Trading LLC, said in a Bloomberg TV interview. OPEC+ are “not meeting their quotas as it is already,” she said.

Complicating the supply outlook is a proposed price cap on Russian oil, which a US official said could be announced within weeks. While the US-led measure is designed to deprive the Kremlin of revenues for its war in Ukraine and keep crude flowing, President Vladimir Putin has threatened to withhold supply.

The American Petroleum Institute reported US crude stockpiles dropped by 1.77 million barrels last week, according to people familiar with the figures. Official Energy Information Administration data is due later Wednesday.

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