A barrel of Brent oil plateaus around USD 80 after climbing for several weeks
The future of a barrel of Brent crude for March delivery comes to USD 79.98 Wednesday morning against USD 80.07 Tuesday at 5 p.m. CET. Since the beginning of December, the price has risen by 16.5 percent from USD 68.57.
The US benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, sits at USD 76.95 Wednesday morning against USD 77.18 Tuesday.
The prices rose by a little more than 1 percent Tuesday when the oil-exporting nations and their allies, OPEC+, convened and resolved to maintain their previously agreed plans to gradually scale up deliveries on a monthly basis.
That means that the February output will increase by an additional 400,000 barrels a day. The actual volume increase could very well be smaller, however, as some nations are struggling to meet their production targets.
The co-founder of Energy Aspects, Amrita Sen, projects to Bloomberg News that the alliance will only manage to increase the output by 250,000 barrels a day by next month.
The oil prices are further buttressed by a US industry report showing another dip in the country's crude oil invetories. Data from US trade association, the American Petroleum Institute, from Tuesday showed a decrease in US oil inventories of 6.4 barrels last week.
Opec+ maintains plan to raise February output
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