Vienna: The group of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, known as OPEC+, will meet on Thursday over a possible extension of production cuts in the coming months.
The meeting via video call, scheduled to be held later in the day, was postponed from Tuesday and comes as the oil market recovery remains fragile amid the raging Covid-19 pandemic, reports Xinhua news agency.
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Ahead of the upcoming talks, “key players in the 23-nation alliance are making diplomatic efforts to resolve a dispute, centred around Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, over how much crude to pump in the new year”, Bloomberg News said in a report.
As investors await the group’s key decision on output policy, analysts warn that “if their pact breaks down, prices would sink again”, the report added.
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In addition to cuts of 9.7 million barrels per day in May and June, OPEC+ had agreed at their April meeting that the cuts would be softened to 7.7 million bpd between July and December, and to 5.8 million bpd between January 2021 and April 2022.