Crude oil higher; Saudi Arabia dismisses output hike report

By Peter Nurse 

Investing.com — Oil prices rose Tuesday, rebounding from recent hefty losses after Saudi Arabia denied that a group of top producers was considering boosting output, implying that global supply would remain tight.

By 08:50 ET (13:50 GMT), futures traded 1.9% higher at $81.53 a barrel, while the contract rose 1.9% to $89.09.

Both benchmarks had slumped 5% on Monday, with the U.S. contract falling to its lowest level since early January, after a Wall Street Journal report stated that the desert kingdom, a top exporter, is looking at urging the group to increase production when it next meets.

Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the de facto leader of OPEC+, was quick to deny the report, saying that the group was sticking with output cuts and could take further steps to balance the market.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, a group known as OPEC+, decided to cut output by 2 million barrels a day at its meeting last month.

“It would be an odd move from OPEC+ to increase supply when there is still so much demand uncertainty, and while there is still so little clarity on what the full impact of the EU ban on Russian oil will be,” said analysts at ING, in a note.

OPEC+ meets on Dec. 4 to decide production levels moving into the new year, a day before a European Union ban on Russian crude imports along with a G-7 price-cap plan are scheduled to start.

“It is expected that the market will receive more clarity on the G-7 price cap this week, including the level at which the group plans to set the cap,” ING added.

That said, these gains remain tentative, given the uncertainty surrounding oil demand growth in China, the world’s top crude importer, as the country’s COVID-19 case count surged back toward the levels last seen in April, including the first deaths in six months.

The is scheduled to release its weekly estimate of U.S. crude inventories later in the session, after reporting a draw of nearly 6M barrels last week.

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