Oil prices rose above $ 70 a barrel for Brent, hours before the start of a meeting of the Ministerial Committee of the “OPEC Plus” alliance, today, Tuesday, to discuss the situation of the global crude market and future plans.
Global markets are awaiting the outcomes of the committee’s meeting, amid expectations that plans to reduce production cuts will remain unchanged, despite expectations of the return of oil supplies to Iran.
At 06:37 GMT, global benchmark Brent crude futures for August delivery rose 1.44%, or one dollar, to $ 70.33 a barrel.
Also, the futures price of US crude “West Texas Intermediate” for July delivery increased 2.16%, or 1.44 dollars, to 67.76 dollars a barrel.
Oil prices ignored statements made by Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh, on Monday, in which he said that Tehran is ready to easily increase its production to 6.5 million barrels per day, after the lifting of US sanctions.
Currently, Iran’s oil production is around 2.4 million barrels per day, while it reached a historic high of 3.86 million barrels per day in recent months before the imposition of US sanctions in November 2018.
In early April, the “OPEC Plus” alliance – which includes members of “OPEC” and independent producers led by Russia – agreed to ease production restrictions by 350 thousand barrels per day in May, to stabilize the production cut at about 6.65 million barrels per day.
The coalition agreement also stipulated at the time another easing to reduce production in June by 350 thousand barrels per day, to 6.3 million barrels, followed by another reduction of about 400 thousand barrels per day, to 5.85 million barrels in July.