OPEC+ agree to continue oil output increase schedule in March

Oil

The OPEC+ coalition has agreed to maintain its existing plan of increasing collective crude oil production by 400K b/d in March, Argus reports. Under this current agreement collective output will increase by the same level each month until April 2022, before then rising by 432K b/d monthly from May 2022 until the original cut has been restored.  The next meeting is currently scheduled to take place on 2 March where April’s strategy will be reviewed.

The OPEC+ Joint Technical Committee also recently revised its global oil surplus forecast for 2022 down by 100K b/d compared to last month’s report, projecting a global oversupply of 1.3M b/d this year. Under this prediction global oil demand is expected to surpass pre-pandemic levels during the second half of the year, with consumption rising by 4.2M b/d y-o-y to average 100.8M b/d in 2022.