Oil break: why the OPEC + countries left the deal unchanged

Marcel Salikhov, President of the Institute commented to the Izvestia newspaper on the next steps of the OPEC + agreement participants.

The main negative factor affecting the global oil market is the second wave of the coronavirus, Marcel Salikhov, President of the Institute for Energy and Finance said.

“The second wave of the pandemic leads to decreasing demand and threating to oil prices,” he told Izvestia.

In its November report, OPEC downgraded its forecast for global oil demand for 2020 and 2021 by 0.3 million barrels per day. The organization expects a drop of 9.8 million barrels per day in 2020 and an increase of 6.2 million barrels per day next year. The revision of the forecast is associated with increasing cases of coronavirus infection in the world and reintroduction of restrictive measures by the authorities of a number of countries.

In these conditions, the OPEC + countries want to retain the ability both to increase and decrease production if necessary, Marcel Salikhov says.