(London) Oil prices were close to equilibrium on Tuesday as the market struggled to find a straightforward direction ahead of the meeting of members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and their allies via the OPEC + deal scheduled for Thursday .
At around 6:25 a.m., the price of a barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in January gained 0.07% from the previous day’s close, to 84.77 dollars.
In New York, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for the month of December was virtually stable, advancing 0.01% to $ 84.06.
The two benchmark contracts on both sides of the Atlantic had started the week on a negative note which “turned out to be short-lived,” notes Carsten Fritsch, analyst at Commerzbank.
Investors are waiting to position themselves for the ministerial meeting of OPEC + producers to be held by videoconference on Thursday, with the aim of deciding their level of production during the month of December.
The market is currently counting on maintaining the current policy, namely a measured increase of 400,000 barrels per day for the last month of the year.
At this rate, the alliance which still leaves more than 4 million barrels underground every day will return to its pre-pandemic level in nearly a year.
A deadline that many of its customers, who are pushing for a more frank opening of the valves to relieve their bill, deem too distant.
The fact that “Russia, Saudi Arabia and other big producers are not pumping more oil […] is not fair ”, for example lamented Sunday evening US President Joe Biden, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rome.
Other nations greedy for black gold such as India and Japan are also pushing OPEC + to react.
“Given the intensity of the pressure exerted by the White House, we do not rule out that Saudi Arabia may give the green light to an increase greater than the 400,000 barrels per day” expected by the market, Helima advance Croft, from RBC.