OPEC+ meeting rescheduled from Monday to Thursday DUBAI: Oil traders were on edge on Sunday night waiting for markets to open on Monday amid mixed signals about a cut in production to balance an over-supply of crude. The price of Brent crude, the Middle East benchmark, jumped 20 percent to more than $34 per barrel on Friday on suggestions that Saudi Arabia, Russia and the US were on the verge of agreeing a massive output cut. But hopes of a deal faded after a public spat between the Kingdom and Russia, and an OPEC+ meeting — OPEC producers led by Saudi Arabia and others led by Russia — was rescheduled from Monday to Thursday. “The optimism has been dampened,” said Christof Ruehl of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University in New York. “People think now that it will not be that easy.” Saudi Aramco on Sunday postponed the scheduled disclosure of the price at which it will sell oil to major customers in May, which had been expected to show a deep discount. Some analysts took the postponement as a sign that Saudi Arabia was laying the ground for a big output cut at OPEC+. Thamir Al-Ghadhban, oil minister of Iraq, the second-biggest regional producer, was optimistic of an output deal at OPEC+, but said it would have to be supported by the US as well as non-OPEC countries such as Canada and Norway. Ali Shihabi, a Middle East consultant, said: “I don’t see how any agreement will work given the demand destruction for the duration of the COVID-19 outbreak, which will ultimately determine prices.” US President Donald Trump, who said last week he “expected” an output cut of up to 15 million barrels per day at the OPEC+ meeting, dismissed the organization at a Washington press conference. “I don’t care about OPEC,” he said. “It’s illegal, you can call it a cartel, a monopoly. I couldn’t care less about OPEC.”