09:10 AM EDT, 11/05/2021 (MT Newswires) -- Oil traded higher early on Friday, a day after the OPEC+ Group rebuffed U.S. calls to boost supplies beyond its schedule of 0.4-million-barrels per day monthly increases.
West Texas Intermediate crude oil for December delivery was last seen up US$0.95 to US$79.76 per barrel, while January Brent crude, the global benchmark, was up US$0.79 to US$81.33.
In its monthly ministerial meeting on Thursday, OPEC+ declined to add more barrels beyond its quotas despite pleas from the United States and other consuming nations to increase output to check rising prices. The cartel's decision came as it expects demand in the fourth-quarter of this year and the first quarter of next year will be weak.
The Biden Administration on Thursday responded to the decision by saying it will use "the full range of tools" available to protect its economy from high energy prices, which could include a release of supplies from the country's strategic petroleum reserves and could coordinate with other countries who could also release their own supplies, even as some analysts doubted any such action will occur.
"The idea that this would prompt the US - as some have speculated - to release some of its strategic oil reserves is not very likely, and will ultimately be up to the US president to decide. In any case, most market observers had been expecting OPEC+ to remain on its current course," Commerzbank analyst Barbara Lambrecht noted.
Still, the group declined to take any steps to address the potential for fuel switching in Europe and Asia to boost demand because of short supplies of coal and natural gas, which could accelerate should they suffer a severe winter, increasing the call on supply.
"By insisting that a potential energy crisis is essentially not OPEC's problem, the organization is now courting a response from Washington and the other consuming countries that are clamoring for price relief," RBC Capital Markets said in a report.