Oil prices in the basement: Opec-plus countries expand oil production

Zurich The alliance of the oil exporting countries Opec plus surprisingly decided on Thursday to increase oil production – despite a significantly lower oil price. The 23 Opec-plus members around Saudi Arabia and Russia want to increase production in January by 400,000 barrels per day to around 40.5 million barrels per day, as the group announced on Thursday.

The Opec-plus alliance is sticking to its schedule for oil production until the end of 2022 – even though the spread of the Coronavirus variant Omikron is causing uncertainty in the markets. In addition, there is a threat of oversupply on the oil market in the short term, as the USA, together with other oil importers, released crude oil from its strategic oil reserve at the beginning of last week.