As usual today’s OPEC agreement to cut production is more talk than action

Oil rallied big time today on news that OPEC countries have agreed to reimpose a production ceiling and to drop production to 32.5 to 33 million barrels a day. At the low end of the range that would amount to a decrease in production of 750,000 barrels a day from what OPEC says it pumped in August. West Texas Intermediate is up 4.48% to $46.67 a barrel today and the Brent benchmark is up 5.11% to $48.32 a barrel. But this is a typical OPEC “agreement.”

It looks like “No deal” to raise oil prices at OPEC meeting tomorrow

It looks like “No deal” to raise oil prices at OPEC meeting tomorrow

Ahead of tomorrow’s OPEC “consultations” in Algiers, Saudi Arabia put an offer on the table today to reduce oil production to January levels and Iran rejected it. Iran wants to increase its current production of 3.6 million barrels a day to 4 million barrels, the level before international sanctions devastated the country’s oil exports. The Saudi offer would have reduced Saudi Arabia’s production by 500,000 barrels a day, but only if other OPEC members agreed to freeze production at current levels.

One more thing: Oil inventory report due tomorrow

I’ve got one more item to add to your “to watch” list tomorrow: the weekly report on U.S. oil and gasoline inventories from the U.S. Information Administration. Analysts are expecting a jump in oil inventories in the United States of 2.8 million barrels for the week ended on September 16. On the other hand, they’re expecting that gasoline inventories will show a 500,000 barrel decline