The price of crude oil fell on Monday as investors awaited the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meeting later in the week for an agreement to curb supplies into next year.
Brent crude futures fell 39 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $80.19 a barrel by 0728 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were at $75.10 a barrel, down 44 cents, or 0.6 percent.
Both contracts rose slightly last week, their first weekly gain in five, underpinned by expectations that Saudi Arabia and Russia could roll over voluntary supply cuts into early 2024 and OPEC+ might discuss plans to reduce further, Reuters reported.
OPEC and its allies were supposed to meet on Sunday, but the meeting has been postponed to 30 November.
The prices tumbled in the middle of last week after OPEC+ postponed its ministerial meeting to iron out differences in production targets for African producers.
OPEC and its allies had, in October last year, agreed to cut oil output by 2 million barrels per day in November, the deepest cut by OPEC+ since the 2020 COVID pandemic.
The decision came despite pressure from the United States and others advocating that the group increase its output.
In April, OPEC said it would start “a voluntary reduction” of 1.66 million barrels per day in its production of crude oil alongside other members of OPEC.
The cuts were to start in May and last through the end of the year, an official with the Saudi Ministry of Energy was quoted as saying by the Saudi state-run news agency, SPA.
The cut is in addition to the reduction announced by OPEC+ in October 2022, according to SPA.
In June, OPEC said it would extend the cut until 2024.
It noted that the decision was taken in light of the continued commitment of the OPEC and non-OPEC Participating Countries in the Declaration of Cooperation (DoC) to achieve and sustain a stable oil market and to provide long-term guidance for the market.
Earlier in October, the OPEC+ Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC), kept the group’s output policy unchanged.
The fall in crude oil raises more concerns for Nigeria at a time when the country faces severe revenue problems, pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft in its oil-producing region.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) had last week said oil thieves vandalised over 5,000 kilometres of oil pipelines connecting different parts of the country.
The Chief Executive Officer of NNPC Ltd, Mele Kyari, who disclosed this when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream) last Tuesday said the continuous vandalisation of the pipelines was causing a huge loss to the NNPC Ltd while describing the situation as a ‘national calamity’.
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“Over 5,000 kilometres of oil pipelines in the country are not working as a result of pipeline vandalism. Ten million litres of oil was lost from the volume pumped from Aba to Enugu at a time. The company has been unable to pump oil from Warri to Benin within the last 22 years and cannot connect to Ore.
“There is no amount of security measures that had not been taken to curb the crime without success, which, to us in NNPC Ltd, is substantially a national calamity,” Mr Kyari said.
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