Opec today agreed to increase its production quota by half a million barrels a day in an effort to cool crude costs.
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries said its output ceiling will rise to 28 million barrels as of July 1, and that it will consider another 500,000-barrel increase later this year if prices don’t fall.
Analysts called the move purely symbolic, since the group already is exceeding the higher quota, and said it didn’t ease market fears of tightening oil supplies.