By Florence Tan
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Oil prices jumped more than 3% in early Asian trade on Monday as OPEC+ considers cutting output of up to 1 million barrels per day at a meeting this week to support the market.
Brent crude futures rebounded $2.82, or 3.3%, to $87.96 a barrel by 2337 GMT after settling down 0.6% on Friday. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $82.09 a barrel, up $2.60, or 3.3%, following a 2.1% loss in the previous session.
Oil prices have tumbled for four straight months since June as COVID-19 lockdowns in top energy consumer China hurt demand while rising interest rates and a surging U.S. dollar weighed on global financial markets.
To support prices, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies, a group known as OPEC+, are considering an output cut of 0.5 million to 1 million bpd ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, OPEC+ sources told Reuters.
This will be the group’s second consecutive monthly cut after it reduced output by 100,000 bpd last month.
“Anything less than 500kb/d would be shrugged off by the market. Therefore, we see a significant chance of a cut as large as 1mb/d,” ANZ analysts said in a note.
(Reporting by Florence Tan; Editing by Sam Holmes)
