By Alex Lawler, Olesya Astakhova and Maha El Dahan
LONDON/MOSCOW/DUBAI (Reuters) -OPEC+ will delay its plan to raise oil output, currently set to start in January, during its online meeting on Thursday, an OPEC+ source told Reuters, to provide additional support for the oil market in 2025.
OPEC+, which pumps about half the world’s oil, was planning to begin unwinding output cuts through 2025. However, a slowdown in global demand and rising output outside the group pose hurdles to that plan and have weighed on prices.
Several OPEC+ sources have told Reuters an extension of the output cuts for three months is the most likely outcome, while others have said a longer period is possible. All of the sources declined to be identified by name.
“There will be no surprise decisions,” one of the sources said when asked what the meeting will decide.
OPEC+, which groups the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies such as Russia, started its online talks, another source said. A monitoring group of top ministers was scheduled to gather ahead of the full OPEC+.
Despite the group’s supply cuts, global oil benchmark Brent crude has mostly stayed in a $70 to $80 per barrel range this year and on Thursday was near $73 a barrel, having hit a 2024 low below $69 in September.
OPEC+ members are holding back 5.86 million barrels per day of output, or about 5.7% of global demand, in a series of steps agreed since 2022 to support the market.
An output hike of 180,000 bpd – a fraction of the total – was planned for January from the eight members involved in OPEC+’s most recent cuts of 2.2 million bpd. The hike has been delayed from October due to falling prices.
The group also needs to address a 300,000 bpd output hike for the United Arab Emirates agreed in June that is scheduled to start in January 2025 and be phased in gradually. The UAE is keen for it to go ahead, sources said.
(Reporting by Alex Lawler, Maha El Dahan, Olesya Astakhova, Vladimir Soldatkin and Ahmad Ghaddar; editing by Susan Fenton and David Evans)
