Boosting oil prices: what will be the next move by the OPEC+?
Apart from incurring the wrath of the US, the OPEC+ does not seem to have achieved any substantial financial benefit from its much-trumpeted production cut announced on October 5, in response to the falling oil prices for a few weeks before it. Although the production cut grabbed the headlines with a scary figure of 2 million barrels a day, the actual amount, according to seasoned OPEC watchers, could be somewhere in the range of 1 - 2 million bpd. It is true that before the announcement was made, the price of crude oil had been falling faster than analysts' predictions, while making mockery of certain investment bankers, who saw price hitting above $200 a barrel in the fall! The fall in price, however, has since been modest and it is difficult to associate it with the announcement of the OPEC+ in October. On one hand, there are plenty of concerns on other fronts: the major global economies see their growth forecasts lowered; inflation is wreaking havoc across the globe; the
