OPEC, as well as the so called "OPEC+" partners have reached a tentative agreement on production cuts, causing the oil market to spike Friday. The cuts reportedly amount to 800,000 bpd on OPEC's part, and an additional 400,000 bpd (combined) from allied nations, including Russia. No specific cuts by country were committed to, or at least they were not confirmed in statements.
The agreement reached purportedly contains "special considerations" for Venezuela, Libya and Iran. These 3 nations have been up and down in terms of supply levels as a result of domestic turmoil, and their revenue concerns obviously differ from those of nations like Saudi Arabia, so concessions for their agreement presumably needed to be made to get the deal done. No word yet on precisely what those concessions are.
This morning the market was up 5% on Brent Crude, and 4% on WTI shortly after the open. At time of writing,(noon) both RBOB and Diesel are up almost 7 cents.
What's interesting about the spike today is that the tentatively agreed to cuts are right in line with what analysts expected to see (estimates were 1-1.5mmb, and the agreement came in at 1.2), which should have meant it was already "priced in" but Wednesday & Thursdays' markets don't bear out that assumption.
Time will tell if this particular OPEC related jump is temporary & speculative, as they often are, or if the production cut agreement will have its intended goal of propping crude at desired benchmarks and holding up the increases going forward.
Stay Tuned!
