OPEC+ sticks to its plan, no forecast change required

Oil prices fell briefly on Thursday after OPEC+ decided to push ahead with its plan to raise oil output by 0.4m bpd a month, despite plunging oil prices since news of Omicron broke. Prices recovered shortly after, though, probably because OPEC+ left the door open to making quota changes before its next meeting in early January. It appears the group needs more time to mull over the oil-demand implications of Omicron. We have revisited our own oil market outlook. Turning to next week, China’s trade data for November comes out on Tuesday. We expect imports to have fallen, reflective of softer construction activity. We’ll be holding a Drop-In on the same day (08:00 GMT/16:00 HKT) with the China team to discuss the data and China’s commodities demand outlook (Registration). And more broadly, markets will be closely monitoring Omicron-related developments next week.