OPEC's new secretary general Haitham al-Ghais told Reuters on Thursday that he was relatively optimistic on the oil market outlook for 2023 and added that the world was dealing with economic pressures of inflation in a very good way.

"I want to be very clear about it - we could cut production if necessary, we could add production if necessary," as-Ghais further elaborated. "It all depends on how things unfold. But we are still optimistic, as I said. We do see a slowdown in 2023 in demand growth, but it should not be worse than what we've had historically."

Market reaction

Oil prices continued to rise after these comments and the barrel of West Texas Intermediate was last seen rising 3.% on a daily basis at $90.28.

Additional takeaways

"Fears of Chinese slowdown taken out of proportion."

"Oil price slide reflects fears about the economy, physical oil demand is robust."

"Premature to say what OPEC+ will do at September 5 meeting."