and saying that the oil production plans unveiled this weekend could always be amended or reversed. The OPEC group extended this weekend most oil output reductions into 2025. But it also said it could begin unwinding some voluntary cuts after the end of the third quarter of 2024—subject to market conditions. The potential of OPEC barrels coming on the market in the fourth quarter of the year weighed on oil prices, which slumped by 5% in the two days following the group’s announcement on Sunday.
Following the oil sell-off on Monday and Tuesday, the energy ministers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates UAE, as well as Russia’s top oilman and deputy prime minister, sought to reassure the market on Thursday that OPEC knows what is doing and that the market will soon realize the group has done “the right thing.