The world's most powerful oil group looks set to stand pat for December, which means supply worries tied to the Iran war, not new OPEC+ barrels, are likely to keep driving prices.
Is OPEC+ changing oil production for December?
No. OPEC+ members agreed in principle to keep their December oil output targets unchanged, three sources told Reuters on Saturday, Oct. 31, ahead of an online meeting of seven core members scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 1. The group is instead turning its attention to setting new production quotas for 2027.
The Reuters report, by Ahmad Ghaddar, Olesya Astakhova and Alex Lawler, named the seven members taking part: Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Kazakhstan and Oman. All three sources declined to be identified. Investing.com carried the same details on Saturday afternoon, noting that Reuters had reported in July that OPEC+ was likely to leave its targets unchanged throughout the fourth quarter.
OPEC+ is the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries plus allied producers such as Russia. Its members agree on production targets, measured in barrels per day (bpd), to influence how much oil reaches the world market.
Why is OPEC+ standing still?
The short answer is that many members can't hit their current targets anyway. Reuters reported that Gulf producers have been boosting exports that were disrupted for months by the Iran war, but most are still pumping well below their output targets. Raising a quota that a country can't fill would do little to add real barrels.
The group has also finished one big step and is pausing before the next. In September, OPEC+ completed the phased rollback of a 1.65 million bpd supply cut first agreed in 2023. One more layer of cuts, about 2 million bpd covering most members, runs through the end of 2026. Before deciding how to unwind it, the group needs to finish a review of members' production capacity during…
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Kiara Miller — Founder & Editor
Kiara Miller is the founder and editor of The Evergreen Edit. He has been doing independent finance research for two decades and reviews every article before it's published.
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