2025-11-03 00:00

OPEC+ agrees to small output increase in December OPEC+ plans to pause production increases in the new year Supply outlook and Asian factory data weigh on prices NEW YORK, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Oil prices held steady on Monday as the market balanced the latest OPEC+ supply increase with the group's plans to pause output increases in the first quarter of 2026 along with fears of an oil supply glut and weak factory data in Asia. Brent crude futures rose 12 cents, or 0.2%, to settle at $64.89 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose 7 cents, or 0.1%, to settle at $61.05. Sign up here. OPEC+, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allied producers, agreed on Sunday to raise output by a small 137,000 barrels per day (bpd) in December. OPEC+ also agreed to pause increases in the first quarter of next year. "Any negative price implications from OPEC’s furtherance of this quarter’s 137,000 bpd production increase were offset by the cartel’s suggested pause in output advances after the end of this year," analysts at energy advisory firm Ritterbusch and Associates said in a note. On Monday, Morgan Stanley raised its Brent crude forecast for the first half of 2026 to $60 a barrel from $57.50, citing the decision by OPEC+ to pause quota hikes in the first quarter of next year and recent on Russian oil assets. Last month, the International Energy Agency said the global oil market faces a surplus next year of as much as 4 million bpd. OPEC expects global oil supply and demand to balance next year. European oil CEOs at a conference in Abu Dhabi cautioned against being too bearish on oil. Analysts at RBC, a Canadian bank, said Russia remains a supply wild card after U.S. sanctions on Russian producers Rosneft and Lukoil and attacks on energy infrastructure. Headwinds for Asia's big manufacturing hubs persisted in October, business surveys showed on Monday. Asia is the world's biggest oil-consuming region. Chinese oil demand growth has slowed since 2020 as the country transitions to greener energy, oil major TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA) , opens new tab CEO Patrick Pouyanne said on Monday. He said he remained optimistic long-term due to rising demand in India. STRONG DOLLAR A strong U.S. dollar (.DXY) , opens new tab weighed on oil prices by making crude more expensive for buyers using other currencies. The dollar hovered at a three-month high against a basket of peers. Federal Reserve officials kept pressing competing views of risks facing the U.S. economy, and the debate should intensify ahead of the central bank's next policy meeting in the absence of data suspended due to the federal . Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee said on Monday he's in no hurry to cut interest rates again with inflation still too far above the central bank's 2% target. San Francisco Federal Reserve President Mary Daly on Monday said she supported the U.S. central bank's last week, and will want to sift through incoming data to assess if another reduction in borrowing costs is warranted at the December 9-10 meeting. Lower interest rates can boost economic growth and oil demand by reducing costs for consumers. U.S. manufacturing contracted for an eighth straight month in October as new orders remained subdued, and suppliers were taking longer to deliver materials to factories against the backdrop of tariffs on imported goods. President Donald Trump said the U.S. military could deploy troops to Nigeria or carry out air strikes to stop what he called the killing of large numbers of Christians in the West African country, an OPEC member and Africa's biggest oil producer. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-extends-gains-after-opec-pauses-q1-output-hikes-2025-11-03/

2025-11-02 23:52

SYDNEY, Nov 3 (Reuters) - The CEO of Singapore Telecommunications-owned (STEL.SI) , opens new tab Optus apologised to Australia's parliament for an emergency number outage that was linked to four deaths but declined to stand down, citing a need for stability. *Stephen Rue started in the role a year ago following a massive cyber attack and separate half-day outage which resulted in the previous CEO leaving. Sign up here. *On September 18, Optus said a failure of its "000" emergency line affected thousands of people and four died as a result of the inability to contact emergency services. *Rue told an Australian Senate hearing there are questions about his position but "another change of leader at this time is not what Optus needs or what our customers need". *He added that "the disruption and uncertainty could actually set back the transformation underway and create further risks." *Optus announced on October 23 that its CFO Michael Venter and Chief Information Officer Mark Potter would be stepping down early in 2026. KEY CONTEXT *Optus has been under intense political and regulatory scrutiny since a 2022 cyber attack exposed millions of people's personal details to criminals. *The event resulted in a sweeping overhaul of Australia's cyber-readiness and response rules including mandatory reporting and increased fines for prevention failure. *In 2023, millions of Optus residential and business customers were without phone or internet for most of a day after a routine software upgrade inadvertently sent its entire network offline until it was rebooted manually. *Rue told parliament the September 2025 emergency line outage was caused by human error during a routine firewall upgrade which meant that traffic wasn't diverted before locking the equipment that was being upgraded. https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/australias-optus-ceo-apologises-emergency-line-outage-refuses-stand-down-2025-11-02/

2025-11-02 23:00

SHANGHAI, Nov 3 (Reuters) - China's CATL has placed orders with external suppliers for lithium ore in November, sources say, as the battery giant seeks alternative feedstock while its flagship Jianxiawo mine is closed. A CATL (300750.SZ) , opens new tab subsidiary and joint venture producing lithium carbonate in Yichun, near where the mine is located, made the orders with traders earlier this month, according to two sources with direct knowledge who requested anonymity as they were not authorised to speak publicly. Sign up here. The two companies would rarely do that when the mine was operating at full capacity, one of the sources said. CATL did not respond to a request for comment. Mining at CATL's Jianxiawo site, one of several lithium assets it owns in Yichun in Jiangxi province, has been suspended since early August after its mining license expired. CATL said in August it was applying to renew the license as soon as possible. A month later, Chinese newspaper Securities Times reported that the mine was set to reopen soon. However, CATL has yet to announce such a move. The Jianxiawo mine has annual production capacity equivalent to about 46,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate, accounting for 3% of 2025 global output, according to data from Australian government. The mine closed last year, reopening in February before being shut again in August. Lithium prices have reacted sharply each time given the mine's importance to global supply. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/catl-taps-outside-suppliers-lithium-ore-flagship-mine-stays-closed-2025-10-31/

2025-11-02 21:35

Bessent says high interest rates put housing sector into recession Federal Reserve should cut interest rates faster, Bessent says Low-end consumers hit hardest by high mortgage rates, Treasury secretary says Nov 2 (Reuters) - Parts of the U.S. economy, particularly housing, may already be in recession because of high interest rates, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday, repeating his call for the Federal Reserve to accelerate rate cuts. "I think that we are in good shape, but I think that there are sectors of the economy that are in recession," Bessent said on CNN's "State of the Union" program. "And the Fed has caused a lot of distributional problems with their policies." Sign up here. Bessent said that, although the overall U.S. economy remains solid, high mortgage rates still hinder the real estate market. Housing, he said, is effectively in a recession that is hitting low-end consumers the hardest because they have debts, not assets. Pending home sales in the United States were flat in September, according to the National Association of Realtors. The treasury secretary characterized the overall economic environment as in a transition period. Fed Chair Jerome Powell last week signaled that the central bank may not cut rates further at its December meeting, prompting sharp criticism from Bessent and other Trump administration officials. Federal Reserve Governor Stephen Miran, who is on leave from his post as chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said in an interview with the New York Times published on Saturday that the Fed risked inducing a recession if it did not swiftly lower interest rates. Miran, who is due to return to his White House job in January, was one of two central bank governors who dissented from last week's Fed decision to lower interest rates by 25 basis points, arguing instead for a cut of 50 basis points, or 0.5 percentage point. "If you keep policy this tight for a long period of time, then you run the risk that monetary policy itself is inducing a recession," Miran said in the New York Times interview, which was conducted on Friday. "I don't see a reason to run that risk if I'm not concerned about inflation on the upside." Bessent echoed that view, saying that the Trump administration's cuts in government spending had helped to lower the deficit-to-gross-domestic-product ratio to 5.9% from 6.4%, which in turn should help lower inflation. The Fed can also help by continuing to bring down interest rates, he said. "If we are contracting spending, then I would think inflation would be dropping. If inflation is dropping, then the Fed should be cutting rates," he said. https://www.reuters.com/business/bessent-says-high-us-interest-rates-may-have-caused-housing-recession-2025-11-02/

2025-11-02 21:06

BRUSSELS, Nov 2 (Reuters) - The European Union is considering a brake clause to weaken its 2040 climate target in the future, if it becomes clear countries' forests are not absorbing enough CO2 emissions to meet the goal, a draft EU compromise proposal showed. EU countries are attempting to approve their new 2040 climate target at a November 4 meeting of their climate ministers, just in time to avoid European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen going empty-handed to the U.N.'s COP30 climate summit with other world leaders on November 6. Sign up here. But with some countries concerned about the costs to struggling domestic industries, the EU is considering various flexibilities and options to weaken the climate target, which the commission has said should be to cut planet-warming emissions 90% by 2040. Countries' latest draft negotiating compromise, seen by Reuters on Sunday, added a new clause that said if forests and other land-based activities that absorb CO2 emissions fall short, the EU will be allowed to propose "an adjustment of the 2040 intermediate target corresponding to and within the limits of the possible shortfalls". Brussels could also respond by proposing extra measures to help get the forest sector back on track for the emissions goal, it said. The move echoes a proposal made by France last week, previously reported by Reuters, which had demanded an "emergency brake" to reduce the 90% emissions target by 3%, if forests and the land-use sector underdeliver. The amount of CO2 absorbed by Europe's forests and land-use sector dropped by nearly a third in the last decade, because of factors including wildfires and unsustainable forest management. Previous negotiating drafts showed countries were already considering letting the EU revise the 2040 goal every two years, another route that could weaken it in the future. But their ministers will still have to thrash out key issues on Tuesday, including the share of the 90% emissions reduction which countries will be allowed to cover by buying foreign carbon credits. Support from at least 15 of the 27 EU members is needed to pass the goal. A spokesperson for Denmark, which holds the EU's rotating presidency and drafted the document, said all the necessary ingredients were now in place to land a deal. “With COP30 about to start this is the time to agree on the 2040 target,” the spokesperson said. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/cop/eu-considers-weakening-2040-climate-goal-over-forest-co2-absorption-draft-shows-2025-11-02/

2025-11-02 16:28

OPEC+ pauses oil output increases for Jan-March 2026 Group agrees output hike of 137,000 bpd for Dec 2025 Oil glut predictions dominate outlook for 2026 New sanctions make it difficult for Russia to raise output LONDON/MOSCOW, Nov 2 (Reuters) - OPEC+ on Sunday agreed a small oil output increase for December and a pause in increases in the first quarter of next year as the producers' group moderates plans to regain market share due to rising fears of a supply glut. OPEC+ has raised output targets by around 2.9 million barrels per day - or around 2.7% of global supply - since April, but slowed the pace from October amid predictions of a looming oversupply. Sign up here. New Western sanctions on OPEC+ member Russia are adding to challenges in the strategy, as Moscow may struggle to further raise output after the U.S. and Britain imposed new measures on top producers Rosneft and Lukoil. On Sunday, the eight OPEC+ members taking part in the group's monthly meeting - Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Kazakhstan and Algeria - agreed to increase December output targets by 137,000 barrels per day, the same as for October and November. "Beyond December, due to seasonality, the eight countries also decided to pause the production increments in January, February, and March 2026," the group said in a statement. JANUARY TO MARCH WEAKEST QUARTER Oil prices fell to a five-month low of about $60 a barrel on October 20 on concerns that a glut was building, but have since recovered to about $65 a barrel on Russian sanctions and optimism over U.S. talks with trade partners. "OPEC+ is blinking — but it's a calculated blink," said Jorge Leon from Rystad. "Sanctions on Russian producers have injected a new layer of uncertainty into supply forecasts, and the group knows that overproducing now could backfire later." "By pausing, OPEC+ is protecting prices, projecting unity, and buying time to see how sanctions play out on Russian barrels," Leon said. January to March is the weakest quarter for oil demand and supply balances, and by pausing OPEC+ is showing it is proactively managing the market, said Amrita Sen from Energy Aspects. Giovanni Staunovo from UBS said oil prices were unlikely to move much when trading opens on Monday, as the modest December production increase had been widely anticipated. OPEC+ had been reducing output for several years until April and cuts had peaked in March, amounting to 5.85 million bpd in total. The reductions were made up of three elements: voluntary cuts of 2.2 million bpd, 1.65 million bpd by eight members and a further 2 million bpd by the whole group. The group has been unwinding voluntary cuts, while the last element of the cuts for the whole group is meant to stay in place until the end of 2026. Eight OPEC+ members will meet again on November 30, the same day as a full OPEC+ meeting. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/opec-agrees-small-december-oil-output-hike-q1-pause-2025-11-02/