OPEC to increase oil production to 400,000 barrels per day

Brazzaville, Congo | Xinhua | Republic of Congo’s Minister of Hydrocarbons Bruno Jean Richard Itoua, current chairman of the ministerial conference of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), announced Wednesday that OPEC will increase oil production to 400,000 barrels per day.

According to Itoua, this decision is aimed at stabilizing the global oil market.

“We have decided to slightly increase oil production to 400,000 barrels per day, at the same level as three months ago,” said Bruno Jean Richard Itoua at the end of an online OPEC ministerial conference.

Demand will be slightly weaker than in 2021, said Itoua, noting that market behavior remains dependent on the curve of the Omicron variant.

Oil prices, which have risen more than 10 percent since early January, recently reached the 90 dollars, a barrel mark, for the first time in seven years. Specialists explain this surge in oil market prices by the current geopolitical tensions in the world, including production interruptions in several oil-producing countries such as Angola, Nigeria or Libya.

The Republic of the Congo, the third largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria and Angola, with an estimated production of 336,000 barrels of crude oil per day, now assumes OPEC’s rotating presidency for 2022.

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Xinhua