AHEAD of their meeting in Vienna later this week, Opec’s oil ministers have done a good job of convincing themselves that they can simply decide to hold steady, and do no more than they’re already doing.
That’s not surprising given they tend to err on the side of doing as little as possible because that’s often the easiest consensus to form among the group’s members.
What’s interesting is how they will come to that conclusion, given the wealth of data out there and the myriad ways of slicing and dicing it. One reason for their complacency is that they expect "sharp revisions of non-Opec supply going into 2020, particularly from shale basins in the U.S., ” according to Opec Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo.
My gut feeling is that Opec should beware. Yes, the breakneck growth in U.S. oil production is slowing, but that doesn’t mean that there is going to be a sudden downward revision to oil production forecasts for 2020.