Following the news, USA benchmark for crude oil West Texas Intermediate (WTI) fell 1.53% to $48.26 per barrel, while global benchmark Brent dipped 1.29% to $49.08 per barrel.
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The cartel that controls over a third of the world’s oil rejected the idea of reintroducing a collective output limit, a move that some oil producers had floated as a way to inject some discipline into the group.
Anas Khaled Al-Saleh, Kwait’s Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance and Acting Minister of Oil arrives at a hotel in Vienna, Austria, Tuesday, May 31, 2016.
Qatari Oil Minister Bin Saleh al-Sada said from Vienna that oil demand was “healthy” and the global supply of oil was on pace for a contraction.
Iran’s current oil output of 3.56 million barrels per day is close to its pre-sanctions production of 3.7 million barrels per day. That would be a first.
State-run Indian Oil Corp hiked the petrol price by Rs.2.58 a litre and of diesel by Rs.2.26 per litre both at Delhi with corresponding increases in other states from Wednesday.
OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia expressed confidence Thursday that oil prices will keep recovering.
The meeting discussed a proposal by Saudi Arabia to implement a cartel-wide production quota range aimed at restoring a sense of unity to the fractured group, a Nigerian delegate told CNNMoney’s John Defterios.
“The market is moving through the balancing process”, OPEC said in a statement following the meeting. Brent crude oil futures also rose marginally by 0.06% and settled at $49.72 per barrel.
OPEC supplies about 40 per cent of the world’s oil, pumping 32.5 million barrels per day.
But the meeting was relatively peaceful and free of the usual clashes between political rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, with Falih promising not to flood the market and to listen to Tehran. The Saudis then said they would not cap output if Iran didn’t do the same, dooming the gathering to failure. Since the lifting of nuclear-related sanctions this year, Iranian production has roared back to almost four million barrels a day, around the same level as before the imposition of the sanctions.
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While crude prices in recent days have taken strength from unplanned outages due to Canada wildfires and unrest in Nigeria, Libya and Venezuela, the strength also comes on back of decline in free capacity with OPEC members.
