Prices of crude oil received support after last week's strong growth, following directly the reports from D. Trump who said that Saudi Arabia could begin to lower the production of crude oil by 10 million barrels per day.

It seems that last week has become a reversal for oil prices. Growing hopes that Saudi Arabia, Russia and the US will still begin negotiations on the regulation of crude oil production, while maintaining quotes. On Thursday, OPEC + will meet in a video conference mode at which this issue will be discussed. So far, it is expected that a decision will be made on it to reduce oil production by 10 million barrels per day.

The question arises here: will it be enough to contribute to higher prices?

In our view, the dynamics of oil prices will depend not only on the volume of reduction adopted at the meeting, but also on the situation of the impact of coronavirus on the global economy. Locally, prices at the end of the meeting may receive significant support on Thursday, if the meeting decides to reduce production by more than 10 million barrels per day, and the implementation time will exceed the forecasted three months.and the implementation period will exceed the projected three months. At the same time, if it turns out to be less in volume and terms no more than three months, and other producers of crude oil – the United States, Brazil or Canada refuse to participate in this process, we should expect a continuation of a strong fall in quotes.

Another limiting factor for prices is the entry of the global economy into recession amid the coronavirus pandemic. Slowing economic growth automatically leads to a drop in demand for raw materials and commodity assets - industrial metals and, of course, oil. We believe that the main task facing oil producers is to bring prices back to $ 60 per barrel, and keep them in the range of $ 30–40 per barrel so that they do not collapse below the $ 20 mark, which will lead to the collapse not only in sale, but also oil producers in the traditional way.

Of course, if everything is positive on Thursday, this could serve as a good incentive to continue to cautiously strengthen commodity currencies against the US dollar. At this wave, shares of mining and energy companies will also receive support.

Forecast of the day:

The USD/CAD pair is consolidating above the level of 1.3990 expecting the result of the OPEC + meeting. If it ends positively, the pair will resume a local decline. In this case, we expect it to declinel to the level of 1.3920, and then to 1.3725, if the level of 1.3990 is broken down.

The USD/NOK pair is also consolidating only above the level of 10.1500. If the result of the OPEC + video conference is positive, then we should expect its decline to the level of 9.8650.