Julian Lee, Columnist

A Supply Hike So Small It’s Meaningless: Elements by Julian Lee

Minuscule OPEC+ increase is unlikely to ease market tightness.

August 4, 2022 at 11:15 AM UTC

Julian Lee is an oil strategist for Bloomberg. Previously, he was a senior analyst at the Centre for Global Energy Studies.

The OPEC Secretariat in Vienna.
Photographer: Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

Hi, I’m Julian Lee with today’s edition of Elements, Bloomberg’s new energy and commodities newsletter. We bring you a daily mix of commentary from Bloomberg Opinion writers and the best of our market-leading news coverage. We hope you’re enjoying it, and if you haven’t yet signed up to get it direct into your inbox, you can do that here.

When an OPEC+ output hike is too small to measure, it’s really no hike at all. The oil producer group’s decision to boost September targets by a paltry 100,000 barrels a day is a meaningless gesture that will do nothing to cool oil markets. If it’s not a snub to US President Joe Biden, it’s an admission that the producer group is powerless.