Oil prices stabilize after three-day decline
Oil prices have stabilized following a three-day decline as investors gauge whether OPEC+ can reach a consensus to deepen production cuts at its meeting, which was postponed to Thursday.
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Brent crude traded around $81 a barrel after falling 2.3 percent over the last three sessions, while U.S. crude traded below $76. The alliance's heavyweights, Saudi Arabia and Russia, are still expected to extend their production curbs of just over one million barrels per day, but there is now a growing view that the group will announce measures to tighten oil markets.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was forced to postpone its ministerial meeting, which will be held online, to November 30 after Angola and Nigeria refused to accept lower production quotas imposed on them by group leaders. According to officials, negotiations are ongoing and reaching an agreement among members appears possible.
Rising supply from non-OPEC+ countries and a reduction in the Israel-Hamas war risk premium have caused Brent to fall by nearly a fifth from its peak at the end of September. The International Energy Agency predicted earlier this month that the market would return to a surplus next year.
"Saudi Arabia and other OPEC+ members will be keen to avoid any split," said Vivek Dhar, an analyst at Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
About half of the respondents to a Bloomberg survey of investors and analysts expect OPEC+ to announce measures to tighten oil markets. None of them predict that a full agreement will fail to be reached.