Unless oil prices melt down again this week, Opec will not cut production at this weekend’s informal meeting in Cairo and instead will wait until the cartel’s gathering in December to reduce output quotas by 1m to 1.5m barrels a day, says Mike Wittner, global head of oil research at Société Générale.

Mr Wittner says that Opec simply does not have enough information on the effectiveness of the production cuts that it has already made, or sufficient feedback from its customers, to proceed with further reductions in output. “We see (a decision to maintain current production quotas) as a 60-40 probability and the outcome of the meeting could easily be affected by price action this week,” says Mr Wittner, who notes that signals from Opec have been mixed so far.