Brent oil drops to $78.26 per barrel

Oil prices continued to decline on Monday after falling on Friday and at the end of last week, despite OPEC+'s decision to extend production restrictions, Report informs via Interfax.

The cost of February futures for Brent oil on the London ICE Futures exchange amounted to $78.26 per barrel, which is $0.62 (0.79%) lower than at the close of the previous session. On Friday, the price of these contracts fell by $1.98 (2.5%) to $78.88 per barrel.

WTI oil futures for January in e-trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) fell by $0.51 (0.69%) to $73.56 per barrel. According to the results of previous trading, the cost of these contracts fell by $1.89 (2.5%) to $74.07 per barrel.

Last week, both Brent and WTI lost about 2%.

OPEC+ did not change official production quotas following the results of the last meeting. At the same time, individual countries of the group will voluntarily reduce production by 2.2 million barrels per day in the first quarter of 2024.

“It appears that traders either do not believe that OPEC+ countries will comply with the agreed terms, or do not consider the production cuts sufficient,” said Craig Erlam, chief analyst at OANDA, as quoted by Market Watch.