Oil prices could fall below $80 a barrel despite the OPEC+ alliance’s latest attempts to support this level with cuts in fuel production. Such an opinion was expressed in an interview with Bloomberg Television. expression Ed Morse, Head of Global Commodities Research at CitiGroup.
He said China’s long-awaited economic recovery was slower than expected. At the same time, the possibility of a slowdown in economic growth in the West undermines oil demand, the expert said.
“Time will tell what really happens in the economy (China. – socialbites.ca), but the recovery is slower. If anything, it will be an end-of-year phenomenon,” Morse said.
The expert also said that investors may underestimate how much production increase can be achieved in Iraq and Venezuela. According to him, this could offset some of the production cuts from OPEC+.
On April 2, many OPEC+ countries, including Russia, announced that they would cut oil production until the end of the year due to the unpredictability in the global raw material market. Moscow said it would cut production by 500,000 barrels per day in a similar decision taken by Saudi Arabia. Other OPEC+ countries have also announced plans to reduce their daily oil production level. Thus, the UAE will reduce production by 144 thousand barrels per day, Oman – 40 thousand, Kuwait – 128 thousand, Algeria – 48 thousand, Iraq – 211 thousand. In total, the alliance countries expressed their readiness to reduce the total. Oil production is more than 1.5 million barrels per day.