(Bloomberg) – Oil declined on concerns that OPEC+ will once again bolster supply at a meeting on Sunday, compounding fears of higher volumes later in the year.
West Texas Intermediate futures fell about 1% to trade near $63 a barrel, extending an earlier decline after softer-than-expected U.S. jobs data added to concerns demand may wane. Prices slumped Wednesday following a report that OPEC and its allies would consider fresh increases at a weekend policy meeting.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak subsequently said OPEC+ will “look at the current situation as a whole” before making a decision. Several delegates from the group said it has yet to decide on how to proceed.
Algorithmic traders also may have contributed to oil’s slide on Thursday. Trend-following commodity trading advisers have been steadily selling crude since reaching “buying exhaustion” at the $65-a-barrel level, “creating just a few ripples and weighing on prices,” according to Daniel Ghali, a commodity strategist at TD Securities.
“We think a tidal wave is coming next,” Ghali said. “We expect that algos are now set to imminently sell a massive 40% of their maximum size.”
Oil stockpile data also weighed on prices. In the U.S., an industry estimate showed crude inventories at the storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma — the pricing point for WTI — expanded by 2.1 million barrels last week. If confirmed by official figures later Thursday, that would be the biggest increase since March.
U.S. oil has retreated more than 10% this year as OPEC+ has boosted production targets at a rapid clip to reclaim market share from rival drillers. At the same time, producers from outside the alliance have ramped up output, while concerns about demand have intensified as the Trump administration imposed a wave of trade tariffs.
The combination has spawned widespread predictions for a glut that will swell global stockpiles, pushing many investors to the sidelines until clarity on OPEC’s output plans is achieved this weekend, brokers say.
“We still see the current oversupply in oil markets intensifying,” Samantha Dart, an analyst at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said in a note, forecasting Brent in the low $50s in late 2026.
