OPEC Meeting: What to Watch for Oil Prices

Published July 6, 2018

Helima Croft, our Global Head of Commodity Strategy, joined CNBC to discuss the outlook for oil following the OPEC meeting and the US State Department’s moves to stop global partners from buying Iranian crude.

Helima Croft, our Global Head of Commodity Strategy, joined CNBC to discuss the outlook for oil following the OPEC meeting and the US State Department’s moves to stop global partners from buying Iranian crude.

The marathon of the June OPEC meetings in Vienna proved that Saudi Arabia and Russia are eager to fully embrace their role as co-regulators of the oil market. In the decision to move away from production cuts and toward increasing production to balance the market‎, both countries came out on the winning end as they pushed for increased volumes. On the flip side, Iran is one of the countries that can’t put additional barrels on the market, losing production due to sanctions and thus leaving them with no ability to offset price declines with additional volume.

With Venezuelan oil production dropping like a lead balloon and high volumes lost from the market from Iran‎, the biggest challenge will be the potential for more geopolitical turmoil, as there will likely be less spare capacity in the tank to put on the market to mitigate the impact of any additional outages or crises.

EnergyIranian OilOPECOil