“The conditions right now warrant hopefully successful meetings,” Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told Reuters on Friday. “Coordination is underway to hold OPEC and OPEC+ meetings tomorrow afternoon.”
Market reaction
Crude oil continued to edge higher on these comments. As of writing, the barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was up 2.6% on the day at $38.30. Moreover, the barrel of Brent was trading at $41.20, gaining 3.3% on a daily basis.
Previewing this meeting, “we suspect that Saudi Arabia and Russia will initially agree to roll over the deeper cuts for just one month to give the overproducers time to move closer to quota,” said Samuel Burman from Capital Economics. “This way, they can defer a decision on whether or not to extend the cuts or to lift output quotas until July.”