OpeOluwani Akintayo
Lagos — Oil price hedged up above $81on Thursday after OPEC and its non-OPEC partners, OPEC+ agreed to increase output by 400, 000 barrels per day starting from February.
Brent International climbed to 81.83 adding 1.59 or 1.98% at 11:45AM Nigerian time following previous closing price of $80.24 on Wednesday.
Brent crude overnight settled at its highest level since late November.
Sticking to its planned increase in oil production from February, OPEC+ agreement will see supply cuts of roughly 10 million barrels per day. Group bets the market can absorb more oil in the coming months despite surging COVID-19 infections worldwide.
WHO Incident Manager Abdi Mahamud said Jan. 4 there was a “decoupling” between case numbers and deaths due to the milder symptoms of omicron.
“We are seeing more and more studies pointing out that Omicron is infecting the upper part of the body. Unlike the other ones that could cause severe pneumonia,” WHO Incident Manager Abdi Mahamud said in Geneva.
The production cut was put in place in April 2020 to help the energy market after the coronavirus pandemic curb demand for crude.
Increasing market supplies is widely welcomed especially since the U.S had pressured for more outputs.
Oil prices climbed more than 50 percent last year.
OPEC announced on Monday that it had appointed Haitham Al-Ghais of Kuwait as secretary-general from August.
Al-Ghais, a technocrat who has worked in the oil industry for three decades, will replace Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo in August this year to become the group’s top diplomat.
