Oil prices recovered its losses for the week ending July 23 after major oil producers of OPEC+ finally agreed on their production policy.
International benchmark Brent crude traded at $73.55 at 1245 GMT on Friday, posting about 1% gain from Monday when trade at 0637 GMT registered at $72.86 per barrel.
American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) traded at $71.69 at the same time on Friday, increasing around 1.3% relative to $70.78 a barrel on Monday.
The prices fluctuated during the week following the OPEC and its allies, known as OPEC+, held the 19th Ministerial Meeting on Sunday after United Arab Emirates (UAE) refused new production rises based on “outdated output baselines.”
The talks stalled for two weeks and finally the group announced its resolution which includes updates to not only production baseline of UAE but also of Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq and Kuwait.
In line with the new agreement, the UAE’s baseline will be increased from 3.168 million to 3.5 million, Iraq’s from 4.653 to 4.803 million, and Saudi Arabia and Russia’s from 11 million to 11.5 million.
The group also agreed to increase the output by 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) from August to December and extended its production cut agreement from April 2022 to December 2022.
The fears on the spread of Delta variant of COVID-19 continued to negatively impact the oil prices during the week as Delta has spread across 100 countries so far, causing concerns that new restrictions could be implemented which would hamper oil demand growth.
The prices had dropped down to $68 level earlier in the week.
Source: Anadolu Agency