OPEC quota: Optimism on output deal grows

Oil traders and analysts grew more confident that Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will reach a deal to curb global oversupply next week as delegates said talks on assigning quotas to individual countries made good progress. The discussions went well, Libyan OPEC Governor Mohamed Oun said as he left the group’s headquarters in Vienna on Monday evening. The two-day meeting, a warm-up for a full OPEC meeting next week, will continue on Tuesday. Oil gained 4.5 per cent to $47.76 a barrel in New York on Monday, hitting a three-week high, as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said the likelihood of a deal next week meant the bank was bullish on oil prices in the short term. “With greater confidence that the global oil market can finally shift into deficit later next year, we now believe that there is a strong rationale for low-cost producers to deliver a swift production cut to normalise inventories,” analysts including Damien Courvalin said in a research note Monday. (Grant Smith and Angelina Rascouet/Bloomberg)