Month in brief

摘要

March 2020 will go down as the most traumatic month for the oil and gas industry in many years,with prices falling to their lowest levels since 2003.Brent began at $51.9/bbl on 2 March,with sentiment fairly well balanced as OPEC-plus appeared ready to implement a cut of at least 1 mn bpd to help balance lower demand as a result of the COVID-19 corona virus.A surprise interest rate in the United States also helped support prices,which saw little change in the first few days of the month.By Thursday 5 March,OPEC,led by Saudi Arabia,was proposing a 1.5 mn bpd cut among OPEC-plus members(above the existing 1.7 mn bpd cuts),but needed agreement from Russia.The following day the talks collapsed,with Russia refusing to support deeper cuts,leading to the sharpest 1-day fall in prices for 5 years.