Sticking to the Plan
The first key item on the agenda for oil markets was the January 4th OPEC+ meeting in which the alliance decided to maintain its planned production increase of 400,000 bpd of crude oil for February. This comes at an important junction with the simultaneous challenges of managing the energy transition and recovering oil demand in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Omicron variant put the latter in closer focus. Before the arrival of Omicron, there were signs that the market was in need for additional supply as the price of key oil benchmarks such as Brent and WTI rose of the back of growing demand and a perceived lack of supply by oil consuming nations that fed into the larger inflation story affecting global markets. In term of prices, Brent and WTI have increased approximately 42% and 54% respectively since the start of 2021.
Download the full report
The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Xinde Marine News.
Please Contact Us at:
media@xindemarine.com