By Gina Lee
Investing.com – Oil edged down on Tuesday morning in Asia, even after OPEC+ said on Monday that the organization is in almost full compliance with output cuts in place to support the black liquid as the COVID-19 outbreak continues to decrease demand.
Brent oil futures were flat at $45.27 by 9:47 PM ET (2:47 AM GMT), giving up some of its earlier gains. WTI futures were down 0.28% to $42.77.
OPEC+’s joint technical committee (JTC), made up of technical experts assessing the implementation of the cuts, convened yesterday, with the compliance with July’s output cuts reportedly at around 97%.
OPEC+ in August eased the agreed cuts to 7.7 million barrels per day (bpd) from the previous 9.7 million bpd agreed to earlier in the year, as the COVID-19 outbreak caused a collapse in demand.
But some investors remained optimistic that prices will remain stable.
“The producer club [OPEC] cannot afford prices to slump too far, as its members’ economies rely heavily on the revenue generated by petroleum exports,” Eurasia Group said in a note.
“U.S. producers are also taking advantage of supply cuts led by OPEC and Russia,” the note added.
Investors will be looking to OPEC’s joint ministerial monitoring committee (JMMC), whose meeting was postponed to August 19, for further production clues. They will also be looking at the American Petroleum Institute (API)’s crude oil demand forecast, due later in the day.