Reuters: Oil prices ease after OPEC, allies agree to taper oil supply curbs

Oil prices eased on Thursday after OPEC and allies such as Russia agreed to taper record supply curbs from August, though the drop was cushioned by hopes for a swift U.S. demand pick-up after a big drawdown from the country’s crude stocks.

Brent crude LCOc1 fell 27 cents, or 0.6%, to $43.52 a barrel by 0439 GMT, and U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 dropped 32 cents, or 0.8%, to $40.88 a barrel, Reuters said.

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They rose 2% the previous day, helped by the U.S. crude inventories drop.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, known as OPEC+, agreed on Wednesday to scale back oil production cuts from August as the global economy slowly recovers from the coronavirus pandemic.

OPEC+ has been cutting output since May by 9.7 million barrels per day, or 10% of global supply, but from August, cuts will officially taper to 7.7 million bpd until December.