The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies pressed ahead with another oil production increase, a move that would complete the group's planned return of voluntarily withheld barrels to the market while setting the stage for potentially difficult talks over future quotas.
Seven members of the broader group called OPEC+ said Sunday they will raise output by about 188,000 barrels a day in September, a sixth straight monthly increase. The participating countries include Saudi Arabia -- the group's de facto leader -- along with Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Kazakhstan and Oman.
The September increase would complete the phased unwinding of 1.65 million barrels a day of voluntary supply cuts originally agreed in 2023, when the group still included the United Arab Emirates, which left OPEC earlier this year. Separate cuts of around 2 million barrels a day introduced by the broader OPEC+ group in 2022 remain in place through the end of the year.
While planned output hikes might not fully materialize because of persistent supply disruptions in the Persian Gulf due to the Iran war, they still have the potential to reshape the oil market balance next year, analysts say.
OPEC+ is also reviewing members' production capacity to establish 2027 output baselines, which will determine future quotas. The conflict in the Middle East, however, has likely complicated that assessment and could test the group's cohesion if producers seek to pump above targets once regional flows normalize.
The seven OPEC+ producers are scheduled to meet again on Sept. 6 to decide production levels for October. The group could then opt to pause output increases as it continues to assess the rapidly evolving impact of the Iran war on global oil supplies, according to analysts.
Oil prices ended July with their largest monthly gain since March after hostilities between the U.S. and Iran flared again. On Saturday night, President Trump called off a new attack on Iran, saying " the perimeters of a deal had been agreed to" that would open the Strait of Hormuz -- one of the world's busiest oil chokepoints -- to commercial traffic.
The five-month-old conflict has spread well beyond the Persian Gulf.
Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen attacked vessels in the Red Sea in the second half of July in an effort to enforce a blockade of Saudi oil shipments, jeopardizing the Bab al-Mandeb strait -- the narrow waterway connecting the southern Red Sea to, ultimately, markets in Asia and elsewhere.
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