Buoyed by oil prices, opec+ opts to stay the course

摘要

With crude prices at their highest for over a year and global oil inventories continuing their descent towards the latest fve-year average, the Opec+ Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) concluded on 3 February that there is no immediate need to make changes to the alliance’s production policy. After what one Opec+ delegate described as one of the group’s more “straight- forward” meetings, the JMMC struck a positive tone, expressing its hope that 2021 would be a “year of recovery” following last year’s Covid-induced oil demand and price collapse. “The gradual rollout of vaccines… is a positive factor for the rest of the year, boosting the global economy and oil demand,” it said. But the committee still urges caution, highlighting that economic prospects and oil demand would “re- main uncertain in the coming months”, largely because of Covid uncertainties. As if to emphasise the point, the International Air Transport Association says that “the world is more locked down today than at virtually any point in the past 12 months”.