Most members increased production; Iran and Kuwait boosting output by around 50,000 b/d each and Angola by 30,000 b/d, with smaller increases of around 10,000 b/d coming from Algeria, Libya, Nigeria and Qatar. Saudi Arabia, one of OPEC's key producers, pumped an average 9 million b/d during the month, up 200,000 b/d from recent production levels. Iraq's output rose 120,000 b/d in November to 2.4 million b/d, the highest since the 2003 war.
"For consumers, it's encouraging to see Saudi Arabia above the 9 million barrel per day mark," said Platts Global Director of Oil John Kingston. "At Platts, we had seen some signs that more oil was coming on the market, with one of the most visible indicators being the rise in tanker freight rates. That was an indication that more ships were being chartered to move more oil. These numbers justify that assumption. It's also encouraging to see the sustained improvement out of Iraq. And the fact that this rise in output occurred while the UAE was undergoing significant oil field maintenance is another hopeful sign for additional supply injections down the road."
Field maintenance that affected UAE production had been anticipated by the marketplace. The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company had signalled the likely November maintenance of its Upper Zakum, Lower Zakum and Umm Shaif offshore oilfields in advance, saying in September that it had worked with its customers to ensure minimum disruption by advancing the majority of exports. As a result, total UAE output fell to 2.15 million b/d in November, down from an average of 2.6 million b/d in October.
OPEC ministers, who met in Abu Dhabi last Wednesday, December 5th, decided to maintain current output limits, set at 27.253 million b/d for the OPEC-10, and to meet again in Vienna on February 1, 2008. They also assigned output allocations of 1.9 million b/d to Angola, which joined OPEC last January, and 520,000 b/d to Ecuador which resumed its OPEC membership at OPEC's November 17-18 heads of state summit in the Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Including these two countries, OPEC's output target is set to rise to 29.673 million b/d in January 2008.
