OPEC+ will delay oil output hike until April, source says

OPEC+ will delay its plan to raise oil output, currently set to start in January, during its online meeting today, an OPEC+ source told Reuters, to provide additional support for the oil market in 2025.

OPEC+, which pumps about half the world’s oil, was planning to begin unwinding output cuts through 2025. However, a slowdown in global demand and rising output outside the group pose hurdles to that plan and have weighed on prices.

Several OPEC+ sources said an extension of the output cuts for three months is the most likely outcome, while others have said a longer period is possible. All of the sources declined to be identified by name.

“There will be no surprise decisions,” one of the sources said when asked what the meeting will decide.

OPEC+, which groups the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies such as Russia, started its online talks, another source said. A monitoring group of top ministers was scheduled to gather ahead of the full OPEC+.

Despite the group’s supply cuts, global oil benchmark Brent crude LCOc1 has mostly stayed in a $70 to $80 per barrel range this year and was near $73 a barrel today, having hit a 2024 low below $69 in September.

OPEC+ members are holding back 5.86 million barrels per day of output, or about 5.7 per cent of global demand, in a series of steps agreed since 2022 to support the market.

An output hike of 180,000 bpd – a fraction of the total – was planned for January from the eight members involved in OPEC+’s most recent cuts of 2.2 million bpd. The hike has been delayed from October due to falling prices.

The group also needs to address a 300,000 bpd output hike for the United Arab Emirates agreed in June that is scheduled to start in January 2025 and be phased in gradually. The UAE is keen for it to go ahead, sources said.

READ: OPEC+ countries extend voluntary oil production cuts until 2025