Oil prices rise as Trump calls on OPEC+ to double cuts

Crude oil prices rose today after US President Donald Trump called on OPEC+ to double its oil production cut.

International benchmark Brent crude was trading at $32.20 per barrel, a 1.35 per cent increase after closing at $31.74 a barrel yesterday.

American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was at $22.62 a barrel, a rise of 0.93 per cent after ending the previous day at $22.41 per barrel.

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“Having been involved in the negotiations, to put it mildly, the number that OPEC+ is looking to cut is 20 Million Barrels a day, not the 10 Million that is generally being reported,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Having been involved in the negotiations, to put it mildly, the number that OPEC+ is looking to cut is 20 Million Barrels a day, not the 10 Million that is generally being reported. If anything near this happens, and the World gets back to business from the Covid 19…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 13, 2020

“If anything near this happens, and the World gets back to business from the Covid 19 disaster, the Energy Industry will be strong again, far faster than currently anticipated,” he added.

Trump also thanked Russia and Saudi Arabia in particular, the countries that led the OPEC+ group.

OPEC and its allies, known as OPEC+, announced late Sunday that they would lower their collective crude oil production by ten million barrels per day (bpd) beginning 1 May for an initial period of two months.

The 10 million bpd of OPEC+ production curb could increase to 20 million bpd if other oil producing countries outside the global body, such as the US, Mexico, Canada, Brazil and Norway, also lower their individual oil outputs next month.

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