BY TYLER DURDEN
Update (9:37am ET): just as expected, this hit moments ago on Reuters:
- OPEC+ JTC MEETING DID NOT DISCUSS EXEMPTING RUSSIA FROM OIL SUPPLY DEAL – TWO SOURCES
And the answer to our tweet from yesterday, 19 hours.
How long until the OPEC+ denial of the WSJ report
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 31, 2022
Yesterday oil tumbled because, as Bloomberg put it, among the many reverberations from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine another might be an early end to OPEC+’s oil supply pact. The 23-nation alliance, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, is due to finish restoring production halted during the pandemic by the end of September, but the Wall Street Journal reported – in a report that has not been confirmed anywhere else – that OPEC is contemplating suspending Russia from the coalition’s quota system, as sanctions prevent Moscow from increasing output. The Saudis and the United Arab Emirates might fill the resulting supply gap, the WSJ said, potentially setting in motion a breakdown of the alliance.
And even though oil prices slumped following the report, ignoring Europe’s all too real (if rather delayed) embargo on Russian oil and focusing on hope that we may get a few hundred thousand extra barrels of Saudi oil supply, none of what the WSJ reported is going to happen, and as Bloomberg’s Grant Smith writes this morning, when OPEC+ gathers tomorrow, the agenda will more likely be business as usual.