Oil Falls Sharply Ahead Of OPEC+ Meeting

As OPEC+ prepares for its next meeting to discuss easing its oil output restrictions for the group, Europe and the United States are possibly staring down the barrel of the Delta variant—and that combination of factors is sending oil prices sharply downward. Both the WTI and Brent benchmarks were trading down more than 1.5% on Monday as various health experts suggested that the Delta variant of the coronavirus could cause “dense” outbreaks in U.S. states that have relatively low vaccination rates. In Europe, Portugal, Spain, and…