OPEC+ likely to maintain oil production pause for March as prices climb, sources say

By Ahmad Ghaddar and Olesya Astakhova

LONDON/MOSCOW, Jan 26 (Reuters) - OPEC+ is expected to support its intermission connected lipid output increases for ​March astatine a gathering connected Sunday, 3 OPEC+ delegates told ‌Reuters, with prices rising owed to a driblet successful Kazakhstan's lipid production.

The gathering of ‌eight members of OPEC+, which pumps astir fractional the world's oil, follows an 8% leap successful lipid prices truthful acold this period to transcend $66 a tube contempt interest that a proviso glut would propulsion prices down.

The 8 ⁠members - Saudi Arabia, Russia, ‌UAE, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Iraq, Algeria and Oman - are owed to conscionable connected February 1. They raised lipid output targets ‍by astir 2.9 cardinal barrels per time from April to December 2025, adjacent to astir 3% of satellite demand, and paused monthly hikes for January-March amid anemic ​demand forecasts.

OPEC and authorities successful Saudi Arabia and Russia did not ‌immediately respond to Reuters' requests for remark connected the upcoming meeting.

Bloomberg earlier reported that OPEC+ would support lipid argumentation steady.

Commenting connected Venezuelan output, 1 of the 3 delegates said a betterment would instrumentality time, and was not yet apt to person a large interaction connected the planetary ⁠oil marketplace balance.

The U.S. captured Venezuelan President ​Nicolas Maduro aboriginal successful January and urged ​oil companies to put successful Venezuela to boost production.

Threats of imaginable U.S. strikes connected Iran person raised the imaginable of ‍reduced supplies, portion ⁠drone attacks and method issues person reduced output successful Kazakhstan.

JP Morgan expects Kazakhstan's Tengiz oilfield to stay offline for the remainder of ⁠January. Kazakhstan's crude output volition mean 1.0-1.1 cardinal bpd successful January, versus the accustomed ‌level of astir 1.8 cardinal bpd, JPM said.

(Editing by Alex ‌Lawler, Dmitry Zhdannikov and Bernadette Baum)