Sunday meeting, in online mode, for Opec plus, the main international organization of oil exporting countries. On the agenda is the revision of oil production levels for 2023, in a context that sees the global energy market troubled by uncertainty about Chinese demand and Russian supply.
Until recently, Saudi Arabia and its partners expected to put further production cuts on the meeting’s agenda, but the evolving international situation has changed priorities: at present, the 23 countries that part of OPEC+ keep supply levels unchanged, waiting to evaluate the impact of the heavy reduction in production (2 million barrels per day) announced during the last meeting of the organization last October.
At the moment OPEC+ is facing a particularly unstable prospect, since the new sanctions decided by the European Union on exports of crude oil from Russia, a member of the organization, are about to enter into force. At the same time, China is attempting to ease the Covid measures that have eroded consumption in the world‘s largest oil importing country. The decision to hold the meeting online, rather than at the Vienna headquarters as originally planned, has strengthened expectations that producers will maintain the status quo. However, Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman is notorious for last-minute surprises.