A ministerial meeting of OPEC+ nations has agreed to raise the group's oil output by 100,000 barrels per day during September.
 
The meeting noted the dynamic and rapidly evolving oil market fundamentals, necessitating continuous assessment of market conditions, said a statement.
 
The increase, equivalent to 0.1% of global demand, follows weeks of speculation that US President Joe Biden's trip to the Middle East and Washington's clearance of missile defence system sales to Riyadh and the UAE will bring more oil to the world market, said a Reuters report.
 
The increase of 100,000 bpd will be one of the smallest since OPEC quotas were introduced in 1982, OPEC data shows.
 
"This is a smaller increase but an increase nonetheless," Amos Hochstein, senior US State Department adviser for energy security, told CNN.
 
An Opec statement noted that the severely limited availability of excess capacity necessitates utilising it with great caution in response to severe supply disruptions.
 
The meeting noted that chronic underinvestment in the oil sector has reduced excess capacities along the value chain (upstream/midstream/downstream), it said.
 
The meeting highlighted with particular concern that insufficient investment into the upstream sector will impact the availability of adequate supply in a timely manner to meet growing demand beyond 2023 from non-participating non-OPEC oil-producing countries, some OPEC member countries and participating non-OPEC oil-producing countries. 
 
It noted that preliminary data for OECD commercial oil stocks level stood at 2,712 mb in June 2022, which was 163 mb lower than the same time last year, and 236 mb below the 2015-2019 average, and that emergency oil stocks have reached their lowest levels in more than 30 years. - TradeArabia News Service