Brent dropped 96 cents, or 1.13%, to $84.18 per barrel, WTI shed 97 cents, a 1.24% loss, to $77.52.

In October, OPEC and its partners took the unusual step of assigning fixed production targets for a full year ahead. Key officials have indicated they intend to leave the quotas unchanged throughout 2023, and the comments from Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman are the most emphatic to date.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories increased by 16.3 million barrels to 471.4 million barrels.

Brent slid $1.13, or 1.3%, to $84.45 a barrel, WTI dropped $1.31, or 1.7% to $77.75.

Nonetheless, the IEA said global oil markets will likely remain in surplus in the first half of the year amid surprisingly robust output from Russia.

We can replace all crude oil with cellulosic biomass (corn stover, forest debris, etc.) liquid drop-in hydrocarbons if the conversion process uses massive external sources of heat and hydrogen.

Brent fell 86 cents, or 1%, to $85.53 a barrel, WTI was at $78.83 a barrel, down 89 cents, or 1.1%.

China has imported about 2.3 million mt HSFO over December-January, about 235% higher compared to 687,000 mt during November-December, according to Kpler shipping data.

Brent rose $2.17, or 2.57%, to $86.67 a barrel, WTI were up $2.01, or 2.57%, at $80.07.

Moscow’s move deepens the 2 million barrel-a-day production cut announced late last year by OPEC+, which Russia leads along with Saudi Arabia.