Oil prices ended in dispersed order on Tuesday in a cautious and wait-and-see market before the meeting on Wednesday of OPEC and its OPEC + partners, and the publication, the same day, of American stocks.
The price of a barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in April, which was the first day of use as a benchmark contract, fell 0.11%, to end at 89.16 dollars.
In New York, the contract on a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) with maturity in March, closed almost at equilibrium (+0.05%) at 88.20 dollars.
The session was “agitated”, in a market “which is looking for a direction”, commented Matt Smith, head of oil analysis at Kpler.
The operators had little news to put in their mouths on Tuesday and did not observe any notable development in the Ukrainian crisis.
All eyes were therefore already on the meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and their partners in the OPEC + agreement.
“Participants broadly expect a further moderate increase in production,” said Bart Melek, head of commodity strategy at TD Securities, in a note.
Since July, OPEC+ has stuck to its schedule of a monthly increase of 400,000 barrels per day with the aim of returning to pre-pandemic production levels by next September.
“I don’t think we should expect anything from OPEC other than the continuation of this increase, month after month”, anticipated Matt Smith.
The decision of the OPEC+ group is put into perspective by the inability of several of its members to ensure the quotas defined this summer.
According to documents from a technical committee of the organization, consulted by the agency S&P Global Platts, those of the countries which committed to given quantities missed their target of 832,000 barrels per day in total in December.
In January, according to a survey carried out by the Bloomberg agency, OPEC member countries only increased their volumes by 50,000 barrels per day, and their OPEC+ allies by 160,000 barrels per day, i.e., at total, just over half of the target of 400,000 additional.
The other event expected on Wednesday will come from the publication of the state of American oil inventories by the American Energy Information Agency (EIA).
According to a consensus established by Bloomberg, analysts expect an increase of 1.8 million barrels in commercial crude reserves. Matt Smith expects a report “without novelty”, which explains that “the market does not want to make a big move beforehand”.