OPEC to keep crude oil output unchanged until March

Several of the world's largest oil producers chose to keep their combined output unchanged and wait instead until spring to see whether any changes needed to be made.

On Friday, energy ministers from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allied producers, who together are known as OPEC+, decided to reduce the official target for the group's combined output by 0.5m barrels a day to 1.7m b/d, Bloomberg reported, citing a delegate.

"Like religion, if you are a believer you have to practice. And without practice you are an unbeliever," said Saudi Prince Abdulaziz said at the start of Friday's OPEC+ conference.

"The market will have to trust us. The analysts will have to believe us [and if they don't] we cannot deliver what we want to achieve. It is as simple as that, and sometimes it is as tough as that."

Indeed, the new target cut only served to officially reflect the cuts that had already been carried out by Saudi Arabia, which had thus far borne a disproportionate share of the burden of propping up prices and lost some of its market share as a result.

Hence, the assembled ministers in Vienna also agreed to redistribute the various countries' individual production quotas so that Riyadh was not forced to offset overproduction by some of the other members of OPEC.

The new production target would only last until the end of March, whgen OPEC+ ministers would meet again to assess the state of the market.

As of 1302 GMT, front month Brent crude oil futures were dipping 0.285% to $63.21 a barrel on the ICE.