Oil and Covid-19 part two: Challenge for Opec

The cartel may need to take significant action to help balance the oil market, particularly as the potential for a worldwide pandemic remains

The current and possible future impact on oil demand and price, due to the spread of Covid-19, means that Opec and its main Opec+ partner Russia have tougher decisions in Vienna than they might have been expecting. And their decision to cut or not has blurred the global market picture. And there are supply-side variables as well. One of these is Libya, a currently supportive factor against further oil price weakness. Over 2019 as a whole, data from cargo tracking specialist Kpler showed Libyan exports consistently averaging 1mn bl/d. January’s figures fell to 700,000bl/d, and for the first three weeks of February plummeted to 65,000bl/d. “Basically, a million barrels a day of lost export, wh