FREDThe price of WTI crude since the last OPEC meeting.
On Friday, OPEC is expected to announce its latest decision regarding oil production.
OPEC, or the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, is the 12-member oil cartel — of which Saudi Arabia is seen as the most influential member — that collectively decides what its oil production target will be over the next six months.
On Friday, it is expected to keep daily production capped at 30 million barrels per day. OPEC did the same in November.
However, that decision sent oil markets into a tailspin.
Ahead of the November meeting, oil prices had been sliding for months, and many analysts expected that OPEC would throttle back production in response. Following that announcement, the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil fell about 10% in 24 hours and a number of major oil companies saw their stocks get crushed.
Ahead of Friday's meeting, WTI was trading around $58 a barrel while Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, was near $62.
So while OPEC is widely expected not to change course on Friday, oil prices are still around 50% lower than they were this time last year. And although prices have stabilized in recent months, some OPEC members are not loathe to repeat the events of late 2014.
"Nobody wants to rock the boat. The meeting is expected to be smooth sailing," one OPEC source told Reuters.
And a report from Bloomberg on Thursday said that while markets await the meeting's announcement on oil production, a good chunk of the meeting was spent discussing the future of solar power in Saudi Arabia.
Friday is also jobs day in America, with economists forecasting that the US economy added 225,000 jobs in May, a number expected to keep the unemployment rate at 5.4% and keep the Fed on hold at least through its June meeting.
The Jobs report is often a market mover, but don't forget OPEC and the chaos we saw in markets just a few months ago.
Here's the November 27 oil chart, just to keep in mind.
Myles Udland/ Bussiness Insider/ FinViz
