With two months left until the election and amid growing speculation that the China/Russia axis may unleash an “October” surprise to make sure the belligerent deep state candidate does not win and send the price of oil higher, moments ago Reuters – a popular conduit for well-time market slam “breaking news”, reported that with oil just barely above 2024 lows, OPEC+ is already set to proceed with a planned oil output hike from October, because “Libyan outages and pledged cuts by some members to compensate for overproduction counter the impact of sluggish demand” which of course is idiocy as the only thing that matters for oil prices – a bump in Chinese demand – is missing. And yet, despite the lack of this clear catalyst, Reuters managed to round up no less than six anonymous sources from the Kamala Harris re-election committee OPEC+. Predictably, oil tumbled instantly.
As a reminder, eight OPEC+ members are scheduled to boost output by 180,000 barrels per day in October, as part of a plan to begin unwinding their most recent layer of output cuts of 2.2 million bpd while keeping other cuts in place until end-2025.
But that’s only if oil prices can remain sustainably higher and absorb the incremental output, something which has clearly not been the case in recent months, when Brent tumbled to 2024 lows.
As such, one can easily conclude that the Reuters “report” – which hilariously comes more than a month ahead of the October meeting – has just one goal: to slam oil prices and push them even lower, in what is either a trial balloon or intentional price manipulation on behalf of various pro-Harris interests.
A slowdown in demand growth, notably in China, has weighed on oil prices and prompted some analysts to doubt whether the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, known as OPEC+, will go ahead with the October increase.
But, according to Reuters, six OPEC+ sources – who almost certainly are being spoonfed what to tell Reuters by the Deep State which is scrambling to keep gas prices as low as possible ahead of the elections – the plan to increase production remains in place as the loss of Libyan output tightens the market and hopes build that the U.S. Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in mid-September. Which, again, is absolute idiocy, and we expect that OPEC+ will issue an official denial within minutes, especially since Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman previously said OPEC+ could pause or reverse the production hikes if it decides the market is not strong enough, which it clearly is not right now!
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/30/2024 – 09:37
