OPEC+ Shifts Dec. 1 Oil Policy Meeting Online, Delegates Say

OPEC+ plans to hold this weekend’s meeting online rather than in-person as originally indicated, delegates said.

It’s the third time in a row that the group led by Saudi Arabia and Russia has turned a gathering scheduled for its Vienna headquarters into a virtual session. The delegates, who asked not to be identified, didn’t give a reason reason for changing the Dec. 1 conference. The switch had been expected for several days. 

Key OPEC+ members need to decide at the meeting whether to press on with plans to start gradually restoring halted oil production, which they’ve already delayed twice. The countries are supposed to revive 2.2 million barrels a day in monthly installments from January, a sequence postponed from October as oil prices struggle. 

Futures have retreated 15% since early July amid faltering Chinese demand and swelling American supply. At about $75 a barrel, prices are too low for the Saudis and many others in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to cover government spending. Riyadh needs prices closer to $100 to cover ambitious transformation plans, the International Monetary Fund estimates.

Traders and analysts surveyed by Bloomberg last week doubt that OPEC+ will press on with output increases next year. Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. predict that an impending surplus is already set to send crude toward $60 a barrel. Prices could sink further if the group opens the taps, they warn.  

The 23-nation OPEC+ alliance has convened only twice in Vienna since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, an event that ruptured Moscow’s political relations with countries in the European Union and beyond. Most of its sessions since the Covid-19 pandemic have been virtual.

At the group’s previous meeting in June, Saudi Arabia issued a last-minute invitation to the other seven members currently involved in supply cutbacks to assemble at the Ritz hotel in Riyadh.