OPEC meeting should yield no surprises

Most of the OPEC members say that they are in favour of cutting production, but they are not willing to reduce their own output. More than an year of low oil prices, all the members are expected to know about the production discipline.

Sustainably higher oil prices will be only achieved by OPEC if it earns the trust that it can control prices. No consensus would be reached yet again in today's meeting, might be there are no surprises today.

Production might remain limited at 30 mn barrels per day. Or it will be raised to 1 mn barrels per day, with Indonesia's re-joining in the cartel.

"OPEC is likely to continue producing around 32 million barrels per day, which is 2 million barrels per day more than is needed. OPEC is unlikely to sway from this strategy until non-OPEC production declines", says Commerzbank in a research note. 

The battle for market shares should be well intensified as a result of increased supply from Iran and Iraq. US crude oil stocks surge was mainly due to higher imports.