Opec and its non-Opec partners face an increasingly complicated decision when ministers meet on 30 November and 1 December — whether, and how far, to extend current production cuts into next year. Positive news about Covid-19 vaccine trials in recent weeks has helped lift oil prices closer to $50/bl. But the world's struggle against the coronavirus pandemic is still far from won.

The Opec+ alliance is due to raise its combined production by nearly 2mn b/d from January as it transitions to the final stage of the output pact agreed in April. This would taper the collective cut to 5.76mn b/d until April 2022, from 7.68mn b/d. But Opec+ is leaning towards a decision to delay its output increase. A more cautious approach to oil market management makes sense, given the short-term uncertainty compounded by ongoing lockdowns and returning Libyan oil exports. A rollover for one quarter appears the most palatable option.

But even if consensus is reached, signs are that it will not come easily. Frustrations are building among some members over their quotas, and among others over poor compliance records. A dozen Opec+ countries produced a combined 390,000 b/d over quota in May-October. The 1 December meeting comes amid rising discontent among some Opec+ members about quotas following requests — at Saudi Arabia's behest — for additional cuts to compensate for earlier overproduction. But an end-of-year deadline to make that compensation is almost certain to be extended again, sources say.

Opec+ leaders Saudi Arabia and Russia have called together members of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee, which scrutinises compliance, for informal talks on 28 November. Pre-meeting back-channel agreements to negotiate compromises have been a pillar of the Opec+ group's recent success. The alliance remains a fragile construct, held together by a marriage of convenience between Moscow and Riyadh. But the memory of the oil price collapse that followed their last falling out in March should still be foremost in all producers' minds.

Given the pandemic's global scale, the expedience of maintaining the deal that has committed producers to the deepest output cuts for the longest sustained period is likely to stay clear. All have experienced slumping revenues and deepening budget deficits after this year's oil demand collapse. But quota and compliance wrangling within Opec is a reflection of deeper financial divides between the group's haves and have-nots — essentially, its Mideast Gulf core of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait, and the rest. "We have reached the limit of our ability and willingness to accept a policy of one-size-fits-all," Iraqi finance minister Ali Allawi says. And Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari is urging Opec to consider the structural and demographic challenges his country faces in meeting its output quotas.

As the world starts to think beyond the challenge of Covid-19 to that of climate change — and the prospect of oil demand peaking in the 2030s, or sooner — Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi are standing by plans to expand capacity of the low-cost, lower-carbon-intensity output that they hope will keep them competitive during the transition. Their poorer peers fear a starker future of investment-starved capacity stagnation or decline and more financial and economic instability. Producers' recovery from Covid-19, just like the global economy's recovery, is likely to be long, uncertain and uneven.

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