Big Decisions Awaits OPEC+ Ahead As Oil Prices Soar on Vaccine Hopes

Big Decisions Awaits OPEC+ Ahead As Oil Prices Soar on Vaccine Hopes

The news of a new Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine with 90 percent efficacy sent stock markets and the oil price soaring at the beginning of last week. However, when the reality for timelines and distribution set in, oil gave up more than a third of its gains by Friday. On midday, Monday CET Brent stood at $43.47 per barrel and WTI at $40.88 per barrel.

When the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Meeting (JMMC) of OPEC+, which is an alliance of OPEC and 10 non-OPEC nations led by Russia, meets on Tuesday to monitor the compliance of their 7.7 million barrels per day (bpd) production cuts, they have to look at the cold hard facts rather than sentiment. While the JMMC does not set quotas, it will nonetheless set the tone going into the full ministerial meeting at the end of the month.

Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdul Aziz bin Salman, who co-chairs the JMMC with his Russian counterpart, has done a great job of keeping OPEC+ members in line and ensuring they compensated for past overproduction. This was no mean feat.

According to Platts, October OPEC's compliance stood at 103 percent and non-OPEC's at 95.5 percent, bringing total compliance to 100.2 percent. While this may look