Baffled by OPEC, Hedge Funds Leave Oil Bets Up in the Air

In the lead up to OPEC’s meeting this week, investors were playing a waiting game.

Hedge fund wagers on the direction of crude prices barely budged, and an obscure decision on Friday didn’t do much to dispel the uncertainty. While prices jumped with the adoption of a smaller-than-expected production increase, it’s still unclear how much more supply will be poured into the market, and which countries will be responsible for it.

“This is a market lacking conviction, leadership and any sense of what’s going to happen next,” said Walter Zimmermann, chief technical analyst at ICAP-TA. “If anything, we’re ending the day with more questions than we began the day with.”

Trump and His Gulf Friends Win Big in OPEC Deal

OPEC’s decision to “strive” to bring compliance with their output deal to 100 percent means that more oil will hit the market in coming weeks. And most of that oil will come from Saudi Arabia at the expense of Venezuela and Iran. That's a big win for President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

As I noted earlier this week, a compromise at this OPEC meeting would require the group to abandon individual output targets and Iran to cede market share to Saudi Arabia. That’s precisely what has happened, even if no OPEC oil minister will admit it in public.

Oil prices slash Oman budget gap by nearly three-quarters in Jan-Feb

Oman’s state budget deficit shrank by nearly three-quarters in the first two months of this year as a rise in oil prices boosted export revenues sharply, official figures released this week showed.

The country has one of the weakest financial positions among the wealthy Gulf oil exporting states, so the data may reassure investors — although the figures also revealed Oman is making little progress in expanding non-oil revenues, leaving it vulnerable to any downturn in oil prices.

The government’s deficit in January-February fell to 268.3 million rials ($697 million) from 997.8 million rials a year earlier, the state statistics agency said, resuming publication of the budget data after suspending it for six months.

OPEC agrees modest hike in oil supply after Saudi and Iran compromise

OPEC agreed on Friday on a modest increase in oil production from next month after its leader Saudi Arabia persuaded arch-rival Iran to cooperate, following calls from major consumers to curb rising fuel costs.

But the agreement failed to announce a clear target for the output increase, leaving traders guessing how much more OPEC will actually pump. Oil prices LCOc1 rose by $1.85 to $74.90 a barrel.

U.S. President Donald Trump was among those wondering how much more oil OPEC will deliver. “Hope OPEC will increase output substantially. Need to keep prices down!” Trump wrote on Twitter after OPEC announced its decision.

But the agreement failed to announce a clear target for the output increase, leaving traders guessing how much more OPEC will actually pump. Oil prices LCOc1 rose by $1.85 to $74.90 a ba

Dubai, Makkah hotels post solid occupancy growth in Ramadan

The hospitality hubs of Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah (UAE) besides Makkah (Saudi Arabia) and Doha (Qatar) were the only four best performing markets in the Middle East and Africa region with solid occupancy growth during Ramadan when compared to last year, according to an analysis by STR.

Qatar and Ras Al Khaimah were the only markets to show overall performance growth in local currency with increases in revenue per available room (RevPAR) of 2.0 per cent and 7.3 per cent, respectively, stated STR.

Ras Al Khaimah was the only market with significant growth in average daily rate (up 6.9 per cent), it added.

Oil Holds Above $74 a Barrel as Chances of OPEC Pact Increase

Brent crude gained in London as OPEC ministers edged closer to maintaining some kind of collective supply pact.

Futures gained as much as 2 percent, reversing a slump on Thursday when it appeared that Iran might walk away from a deal and encourage rival producers including Saudi Arabia to go it alone. While comments on Friday from ministers of producer countries appeared to show an accord may be close, the precise outcome won’t be known until later, when a meeting of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in Vienna concludes.

It emerged late Thursday that a committee of OPEC and allied producers had backed raising oil production by 1 million barrels a day. Effectively, though, the increase would be only about 600,000 barrels a day because several countries aren’t in a position to pump more if they want to. There were Russian proposals earlier this week to boost by 1.5 million a day.