In today’s OPEC meeting the OPEC ministers reached an agreement on the future crude oil production in 2012, as oppose to the last OPEC meeting back in June 8th, in which OPEC members couldn’t reach a consensus on OPEC’s oil production in light of the Libyan civil war and the decline in its oil production.
OPEC decided to keep in 2012 the crude oil production quota unchanged at 30 million bbl per day, which is very similar to its current crude oil production: according to the recent OPEC monthly report OPEC’s oil production reached 30,367 thousand bbl/d in November 2011.
OPEC is responsible for nearly 40% of the world’s oil supply, and it has 12 members.
The uncertainty in OPEC’s oil production in 2012 will continue to revolve around the recent tensions between Iran and certain countries including GB and US. This tension might translate to disruptions of crude oil exports from Iran to the west, which, in turn, may affect crude oil prices.
Currently crude oil prices are sharply falling along with the rest of the commodities prices such as gold price; the Euro and other forex currencies are deprecating against the US dollar:
Current Nymex crude oil price, short term futures (January 2012 delivery) is traded up by 3.16%, as its at $96.98 per barrel as of 15:30*;
Current Dated Brent spot oil price declines by $2.65/b to $106.30 / barrel as of 15:42*;
Euros to US dollar exchange rate is currently traded up at 1.2987 a 0.3802% decrease as of 15:37*;
Current gold price, short term futures (January 2012 delivery) is traded at $1,612.8 per t oz. a $50.3 decrease as of 14:32*.
(* GMT)
For more on this subject: