Oil prices slightly up as Iraq, Saudi vow to cut prod.

By Sibel Morrow

ANKARA (AA) - Crude oil prices were merely up on Friday after major OPEC member Iraq announces it will decrease its oil output to offset overproduction in the previous months.

International benchmark Brent crude was trading at $45.03 per barrel at 0615 GMT for a 0.04% increase after closing Thursday at $45.01 a barrel.

American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was at $41.94 a barrel at the same time for a 0.21% increase after ending the previous session at $41.85 per barrel.

Iraq announced that it would make an additional cut in its oil production of around 400,000 barrels per day in August to compensate for its overproduction under the OPEC+ supply reduction pact over the previous period. The country agreed its production by 1.06 million bpd under the pact.

Saudi Arabia, de facto leader of OPEC and main driver of OPEC+ production cuts, also said it will cap its production further to support prices.

Despite the two Arab nations' further cuts for offsetting the overproduction under the OPEC+ supply reduction pact, uncertainties about the success of the measures against the second wave of coronavirus suppress the global oil demand outlook.

Worries about the health of global economy keeps pushing down the prices as the US coronavirus relief packages to protect the American people from economic impacts of COVID-19 did not prove effective as quickly as expected.

Globally, growing numbers of COVID-19 cases also seem to suggest that global oil consumption is likely to remain low by 2020.

The number of COVID-19 cases worldwide has now surpassed 19 million, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University.

As the US leads the number of cases with almost 4.8 million as of Wednesday morning, Brazil has over 2.9 million, and India follows with more than 2 million cases.