The price of oil crashed on Thursday morning as OPEC+ announced it would be speeding up its planned increase in oil output by hiking production more than expected in May.
Just before 11 am EST, both international and domestic benchmark oil prices had dropped by more than $5 a barrel, with Brent Crude down $5.22 to trade at $69.75. West Texas Intermediate dipped by $5.45 to $66.26.
The plummeting prices appeared to be directly responding to Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman’s decision to increase oil production by 411,000 barrels a day starting in May.
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This is dramatically higher than the roughly 137,000 that had been anticipated. OPEC+ said that next month’s increase is “equivalent to three monthly increments.”
The oil-producing bloc
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