Oil prices fall after OPEC's output hike decision

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Oil prices declined on Monday after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC oil producers on Saturday agreed to jointly increase oil production.

The meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers including Russia decided to stick to 100 percent conformity of the oil production cap set in the meeting in 2016 in which an agreement to cut oil output by a total of 1.8 million barrels per day was reached.

The oil producers have reduced production more than required of them in the past months.

According to a statement from the meeting, oil producers will "strive to adhere to the overall conformity level, voluntarily adjusted to 100 percent."

OPEC did not give the details of how it would split the production increase and did not give directly the amount of the oil production increase.

However, according to media reports, the alliance has agreed to raise output by 1 million barrels per day, effective from July.

The West Texas Intermediate for August delivery decreased 0.50 US dollar to settle at 68.08 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for August delivery lost 0.82 dollar to 74.73 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency