OPEC+ oil producers are expected to keep their December output targets steady at an industry meeting on Sunday, November 1, according to people with knowledge of the matter cited by Reuters in its Wednesday market report. OilPrice reported the same expectation on Tuesday, that the group is set to keep quotas unchanged.
The expectation fits the pattern set on October 4, when seven core members, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman, decided to extend current quotas for November, with Saudi Arabia maximum at 10.478 million barrels a day and Russia at 9.949 million barrels a day, and agreed to keep meeting monthly. The next full policy question, restoring another layer of output taken offline in 2022 and settling 2027 quotas, was already pointed toward the full ministerial meeting on November 29 in earlier Reuters reporting.
The reason a hold carries little supply signal is the gap between quota and production. Gulf OPEC+ producers have been pumping well below targets while exports through and around Hormuz fluctuated at 60 to 80 percent of normal levels in recent months, and the seven core members pumped about 25 million barrels a day in August, roughly 5 million barrels a day below February prewar levels, on OPEC data cited by Reuters. Holding December targets steady therefore preserves the plan without adding barrels, and the market tightness UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo described after the October decision remains the operative fact.