Oil prices continued to fall lower after Saudi Arabia was rumored to be ready to increase oil production should Russian production decline significantly as a result of Western sanctions.
Citing a Financial Times report, talks for an immediate increase in production from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been held and may be announced at the OPEC+ meeting to be held today.
The benchmark US WTI futures plunged around 3% at the opening of the Asian session following the report, bringing it to trade at $ 113 a barrel at the time of this writing.
Meanwhile, Brent crude traded at $ 114 a barrel after losing about 2.4% at the beginning of the trading session.
However, today’s OPEC meeting is expected to see additional production still to be maintained at 430,000 barrels a day in July.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) previously reported that some OPEC members were considering suspending Russia from the deal in order to allow other producers to pump more crude oil.
However, according to OPEC sources, the technical meeting on Wednesday did not discuss plans to suspend Russia from the deal.
