OPEC + plans new exit policy meeting on Sunday, sources say

OPEC + ministers plan to hold their next meeting on Sunday to decide on production policy, three sources within the producer group told Reuters on Saturday.

The move comes after Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) reached a compromise last week in an OPEC + policy dispute, in a move that is expected to unlock a deal to deliver more crude to a tight oil market and cool soaring prices.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, along with Russia and other allies, a group known as OPEC +, have yet to make a final decision on production policy after talks abandoned at the start of the months due to the dispute between Saudi Arabia and UAE.

OPEC could not be contacted for comment outside of regular business hours.

Sunday’s meeting will be held virtually like all such discussions since last year.

OPEC + agreed to record production cuts of nearly 10 million barrels per day (bpd) last year to deal with a pandemic-induced drop in demand, restrictions that have been gradually relaxed since then and now amount to around 5.8 million bpd.

Riyadh-UAE dispute came to light after previous OPEC + talks, with the two raising concerns over the details of a proposed deal that would have added an additional 2 million bpd to the market and extended the pact until the end of 2022.

The aim was to ease the upward pressure on oil prices which recently hit 2.5-year highs.

An OPEC + source said last week that Riyadh had accepted Abu Dhabi’s request to have the UAE’s baseline – the level from which cuts under the OPEC + deal on restrictions on water supply Supply are calculated – set at 3.65 million bpd from April 2022, up from 3.168 million.