The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies are meeting Monday and Tuesday to try to restore some vigor to a crude market still depressed by the coronavirus pandemic.

After an "annus horribilis" that saw black gold consumption and prices plummet, cartel members could decide to extend their current production cut level beyond January 1.

OPEC and other major producers, in particular Russia, united under the term OPEC+, have forced themselves to drastic cuts this year in their production of black gold in an attempt to adapt it to a level of demand which melted.

Under the current agreement decided in April, the current withdrawal from the market of 7.7 million barrels per day is to be reduced to 5.8 million from January 2021, but most observers expect a delay of three to six months.

Influential ministers of the cartel have also sent signals in this direction in recent weeks, and the good news around vaccines should not change their minds.

The AstraZeneca , Pfizer /BioNTech and Moderna laboratories have indeed announced in recent weeks the high efficiency of their candidate vaccines against Covid-19, a real lifeline to restart economic activity, travel and therefore the consumption of black gold.

But their impact should not be felt for months while the action of the cartel targets at least the first, at most the second quarter of 2021.

- Tensions and psychodramas -

But nothing is ever won in advance with OPEC+ because the group of twenty-three producing countries represents as many different domestic situations, and almost as many opinions on supply policy as should be taken.

In mid-November, the United Arab Emirates, for example, showed some reluctance to continue to fully apply voluntary reductions beyond the end of the year.

The cartel must also manage the relative appreciation of some of its members to respect the cut quotas assigned to them.

The bad students who pump more than expected by the agreement, Iraq and Nigeria in the lead, are regularly reprimanded by the leader of the alliance, the Saudi Minister of Energy Abdel Aziz bin Salman.

And the memory of the fiasco of the first summit of the year is still vivid. At the beginning of March, Russia and Saudi Arabia left Vienna back to back and engaged in a month-long price war.

- Supply control -

If the cartel is attentive to crude oil prices, which have returned to their levels at the start of the pandemic, i.e. between 45 and 50 dollars for the two world references (Brent from the North Sea and American WTI), it is also watching for data from production outside its fold and storage capacity fill levels around the world.

Supply from the world's largest producer, namely the United States, has been falling since its historic highs reached at the start of the year, at 11 million barrels per day. And the victory of Democrat Joe Biden, who has a timid but real project to limit the exploitation of shale oil in the country, suggests that the peak of American production has passed.

OPEC+ must also monitor production levels within its ranks, especially since three of its members are not bound by quotas.

This is the case of Libya, whose production was almost reduced to zero in 2020 as a result of an internal conflict and has soared since October. It has now exceeded one million barrels per day, according to the Libyan National Oil Company (NOC).

In the medium term, a more flexible American policy vis-à-vis Iran, also not concerned by the quotas, could bring back to the market hundreds of thousands of barrels daily that it will have difficulty absorbing in state.