WTI crude oil reacts to OPEC’s decision by retreating to $81

As widely anticipated, OPEC+ has agreed to stick to their existing plan to increase output by 400K barrels per day/month in December.

Despite this news, trade has been uneven over the last hour, with oil prices having fallen back sharply from earlier highs.

Front-month WTI futures, which were above $83.00 less than two hours ago, have now dropped back to the mid-$81.00s, though that still leaves WTI higher by well over $1.0 on the day.

The recent emergence of selling pressure could be technical; on Wednesday, during oil’s sharp selloff, WTI dropped below a long-term uptrend that had been supporting the price action all the way back to 20 August and had been respected on multiple occasions.

When prices recovered back above the $83.00 level on Thursday and retested this prior uptrend, technical sellers might have used this as an opportunity to load up on short-positions again.