08:52 AM EST, 11/23/2021 (MT Newswires) -- Oil was mostly steady early on Tuesday after the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom agreed to release supplies from their strategic reserves in a bid to check high prices, while a response from the OPEC+ group is awaited.
West Texas Intermediate crude for January delivery was last seen down US$0.17 to US$76.58 per barrel, having risen off overnight lows of US$75.30 following the announcement of the release from the Whitehouse. January Brent crude, the global benchmark, was last seen up US$0.22 to US$79.92.
The Biden Administration said in a release it is offering 50-million barrels of oil from the U.S. strategic reserve, with 32-million barrels offered as a loan to be repaid over the next few years and 18-million barrels that had already been authorized for sale to be released ahead of schedule.
Reports said India will release five-million barrels, while there was no firm news on the amounts to be marketed from the other partners in the move.
Attention will now focus on next week's meeting of the OPEC+ group and whether it will go ahead with 0.4-million barrels per day of scheduled supply increases when it meets next week. United Arab Emirates Energy Minister Suhail Al-Mazrouei told Reuters he sees no logic in adding more supply when the group sees supply rising above demand in the the first quarter of 2022.
"As things currently stand, the plan is to expand oil production by 400,000 barrels per day each month. OPEC+ might decide to step up its production to a lesser extent in response to the release of strategic oil reserves in the US and other consumer countries. However, it would need to do so in any case given the oversupply that is looming next year, so the threat is not particularly credible," Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch said in a note.