OPEC and Russia will resume talks Thursday (December 3) in an effort to define policies for 2021 after an initial round of discussions this week failed to reach a compromise on how to cope with weak oil demand amid a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
It was widely expected that OPEC and its allies, under what is known as OPEC +, would extend existing production cuts of 7.7 million barrels per day, or 8% of global supplies, until at least March 2021.
But after hopes of speedy approval of vaccines to prevent the virus resulted in a rise in oil prices at the end of November, several producers began to question the need to tighten oil policy, which Saudi Arabia, a prominent member of OPEC, supports.
Sources in OPEC+ told Reuters that Russia, Iraq, Nigeria and the UAE have, to some extent, expressed a desire to supply the market with more oil in 2021.