In June 2024, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (OPEC+) nearly met their targeted production levels, surpassing them by only 53,000 barrels per day (b/d). Rystad Energy‘s senior vice president of oil market research, Jorge León, highlighted the group’s improved compliance with production cuts, emphasizing the effectiveness of the compensation mechanism. He expressed confidence that this strong adherence would continue in the coming months.
Earlier in April 2024, OPEC+ had experienced its highest level of undercompliance with production cuts since April 2021, at 399,000 b/d. By May, the group had exceeded its production targets by 176,000 b/d. In June, the average production from OPEC+ countries with quotas (excluding Mexico) stood at 33.903 million b/d, slightly above the target of 33.85 million b/d.
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Improved compliance was driven by reduced production from OPEC+’s eight voluntary cutters: Oman, Kuwait, the UAE, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, and Kazakhstan. Additionally, other OPEC+ members such as Sudan, South Sudan, Nigeria, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Congo-Brazzaville, Bahrain, Azerbaijan, Brunei, and Malaysia continued to exceed their production cut commitments, according to Rystad.
The overall decrease in production was primarily attributed to lower output in Russia (down by 173,000 b/d) and the UAE (down by 76,000 b/d), despite increases from Brunei (up by 45,000 b/d) and Nigeria (up by 39,000 b/d).