(Bloomberg) -- OPEC+ delegates said they assume next month’s meeting on plans to restore oil production will be held online, rather than at their Vienna headquarters as originally planned.
Several members said they haven’t yet received invitations for an in-person gathering of the alliance, which hasn’t begun the typical logistical preparations to convene at its secretariat on Dec. 1. The delegates asked not to be identified as the talks are private.
The gathering will be closely monitored as market-watchers including Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. doubt that OPEC+ will go ahead with output increases next year. An impending surplus is already set to send crude toward $60 a barrel, and prices could sink further if the group opens the taps, they warn.
If the switch online is confirmed, it will be the third time in a row that the group led by Saudi Arabia and Russia has turned a gathering initially scheduled for Vienna into a virtual session.
Still, at the coalition’s previous conference in June, Saudi Arabia issued a last-minute invitation to the other seven members currently involved in supply cutbacks to assemble at the Ritz hotel in Riyadh. There’s still a chance it could spring a similar surprise this time.
OPEC+ has already delayed the start of its plan to gradually bring back curtailed production twice. Member countries are supposed to revive 2.2 million barrels a day in monthly installments from January, a sequence postponed from October as oil prices struggle.
Futures have retreated 15% since early July amid faltering Chinese demand and swelling American supply. At about $75 a barrel, prices are too low for the Saudis and many others in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to cover government spending. Riyadh needs prices closer to $100 to cover ambitious transformation plans, the International Monetary Fund estimates.
The 23-nation OPEC+ alliance has convened only twice in Vienna since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 ruptured Moscow’s political relations with countries in the European Union and beyond. Most of its sessions since the Covid-19 pandemic have been virtual.
--With assistance from Joumanna Bercetche and Ben Bartenstein.
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