Oil cartel will put stop to planned increase if new Covid variant leads to further travel and trade restrictions
The Opec cartel and its allies have agreed to pump more barrels of oil from January, but left the door open to putting the brakes on production should the Omicron variant lead to further restrictions on travel and trade.
The global price of crude briefly fell to $66 (£49.60) on Thursday, its lowest level since mid-August, after ministers from some the world’s biggest oil producing countries agreed to go ahead with a plan to increase production by 400,000 barrels a day in the new year.
