Crude Oil Futures

  Judging by the reaction on impulse, the production cuts announced by the OPEC+ on Wednesday, has clearly left the Biden administration of the US between the rock and a hard place. Not only did the US say that the decision was short-sighted, but also branded the move as 'the alignment of the OPEC+ with Russia'. The frustration of the US politicians over the move was palpable, indeed. it, more or less, transcends the political divide, which otherwise hardly see eye to eye on any other issue related to energy. Perhaps, in order to calm the waters, the bigwigs of the OPEC+ appeared to have gone into a less-explicit-mode, when it came to the  number-crunching during the press conference that followed the monthly ministerial meeting of the organization; we could only guess the actual cut - anywhere between 1.1 to 2 million bpd. The announcement was a big blow to the US administration, especially when the mid-term elections are around the corner: on one hand, they decided to st

  The price of crude oil has been rising in the markets on Wednesday in anticipation of a production cut by the OPEC+ during its monthly meeting in Vienna, Austria. Some ministers of the OPEC+ were seen arriving for the meeting in the morning, including the members representing Nigeria, Russia and Saudi Arabia; some members chose to join the meeting virtually, though. It has been reported that Russia was demanding a substantial cut in production in light of falling global crude oil prices, exacerbated by the fear of recession, high interest rates, strong dollar and above all, the war in Ukraine.  By strange coincidence, the EU announced that the members agreed in principle to cap the price of Russian oil that needs the universal approval from the members; Hungary, a strong ally of Russia, has already opposed the move by saying it is against piling up more sanctions against Russia. The move by the EU to imposing a price cap on Russian oil may not have gone down very well with the R