Despite pleas from the United States to pump more oil to support the global economy, a group of some of the most influential oil producers decided this week to impose drastic output cutbacks in an effort to boost crude prices.
At their first face-to-face meeting since 2020 in Vienna, OPEC and its non-OPEC partners, known as OPEC+, decided to cut output by 2 million barrels per day starting in November.
This action marks a significant shift in the alliance’s production strategy, which saw output reduced by a record 10 million barrels per day in early 2020 as demand fell as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Those unprecedented cuts have subsequently been gradually reversed by the oil cartel, as several OPEC+ nations are finding it difficult to meet their quotas.
