Oil Price Plunge Tells Morgan Stanley OPEC Action Is More Likely

OPEC is becoming more likely to curb oil supply when it meets next week because of the scale of this year’s price rout, according to Morgan Stanley.

Brent crude, the global benchmark, slumped 31 percent since rising to its 2014 peak on June 19. A 15-to-20 percent move normally prompts the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to adjust supply limits, Adam Longson, a commodity analyst for the bank in New York, said in a report today. The firm now assigns a two-in-three chance OPEC will cut output or enforce stricter supply limits, he said, without giving prior estimates for those two scenarios.