WTI Crude Oil Prices Bullish Ahead of OPEC Meeting

Early on Tuesday, WTI crude oil is trading bullish with prices strengthening as markets hope for leading oil producers to extend supply cuts at the upcoming OPEC meeting scheduled to take place later this week. At the time of writing, WTI crude oil is trading at around $35.61 per barrel.

According to latest news reports, OPEC and its allies could agree to prolong curbing crude production by 9.7 million bpd beyond May and June. Under the previous agreement, OPEC+ was supposed to scale back to supply cuts up to 7.7 million bpd between July and December, but Saudi Arabia has shown interest in extending the larger supply cuts for some more time.

This should help balance oil markets which have been suffering under weakening demand in the wake of the lockdown measures implemented by most countries all over the world. Meanwhile, crude oil prices have also been boosted by an improvement in the overall market sentiment as countries ease lockdown restrictions and get back to reopening factories and offices.

This should help increase the demand for crude oil in the coming weeks and even propel the global economy towards recovery. However, crude oil’s gains have been constrained by the possibility of an escalation in US-China tensions over China’s recent decision to impose a national security bill on Hong Kong.