Oil prices increase over supply side worries

By Firdevs Yuksel

ANKARA (AA) - Oil prices saw marginal increases in early trading on Monday over market supply uncertainties ahead of the OPEC+ meeting on Oct. 5.

International benchmark Brent crude traded at $87.27 per barrel at 09.33 a.m. local time (0633 GMT) for a 2.50% gain from the closing price of $85.14 a barrel in the previous trading session.

American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI), trading at $81.59 per barrel at the same time, increased 2.64% after the previous session closed at $79.49 a barrel.

Investors are awaiting the outcome of the OPEC+ meeting on Oct. 5, when the group is expected to trim output in November.

"Brent crude has fallen over 22% in Q3, raising concerns among the OPEC+ alliance," Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) Commodity Strategist Daniel Hynes said in an emailed note.

"The group has already signaled that it is willing to intervene to support prices. We suspect it will be moved to counteract the excessive bearishness in the market by announcing a cut to production," Hynes said.

He stressed that anything less than 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) would be shrugged off by the market, and therefore, there is a significant chance of a cut as large as 1 million bpd.