Almost a year has passed since oil prices began their sharp descent and almost nothing has changed since then. Despite its detrimental effect on global revenues, Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s leading oil producer, is standing firm on its production target and is expected to announce at its Friday meeting that it will maintain its current level of production.

Last summer Brent crude fell from its highs of $115 a barrel to a six-and-a-half year low of $42.69 in August and is currently hovering at around $45 a barrel. Half a trillion dollars has been wiped off the collective revenues of OPEC’s 12 members, which include Iran, Iraq and Libya.

According to Richard Mallinson, geopolitical analyst at Energy Aspects, “We’re not expecting any change in OPEC’s headline policy. Under Saudi Arabia’s leadership, it will leave production unchanged to push down investment in higher cost output outside of OPEC.”

Asian Shares Down

Meanwhile, Asian shares fell on Monday as Chinese stocks extended last week's sharp losses, as the yuan bounced in volatile trade hours ahead of an IMF decision on whether to promote it to a basket of global reserve currencies.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.7 percent, and was heading towards a loss of about 2.7 percent for the month of November, following showing its first gains in six months in October.

Japan's Nikkei dropped 0.4 percent, still looking set for a monthly gain of more than 3 percent while mainland Chinese shares opened slightly higher but then sank 1.7 percent, after posting their biggest one-day drops in more than three months on Friday.