Oil alliance OPEC+ extends collective crude production cuts into 2025

The influential Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, collectively known as OPEC+, on Sunday agreed to extend their official crude output cuts into 2025.

The coalition will produce a combined 39.725 million barrels per day next year, according to a table published by the OPEC Secretariat. The figure marks the production levels required of individual members before applying any additional production adjustments and factors in the group departure of long-standing OPEC member Angola earlier this January.

It also includes an increase in the UAE output by 300,000 barrels per day, which will be phased in gradually starting January 2025 until the end of September next year.

In a Google-translated statement carried by the state-owned Saudi Press Agency, a subset of the OPEC+ alliance, including kingpins Saudi Arabia and Russia, said they would extend a set of nearly 1.7 million barrels per day of voluntary cuts that were set to expire at the end of this year. These reductions will now be implemented throughout 2025.

This smaller group of OPEC+ member will also stretch another round of voluntary output cuts totalling 2.2 million barrels per day until the end of the third quarter of this year. These trims were initially only scheduled to last until the end of the second quarter.

“The quantities of this reduction, amounting to 2.2 million barrels per day, will then be restored gradually, on a monthly basis, until the end of September 2025,” the statement said.

Speaking to CNBC, analysts and OPEC+ delegates had previously signaled a high likelihood that the oil producers’ alliance would extend its existing supply cuts.

The group’s attention has shifted toward supply-demand balances amid the seasonal start of the summer driving season and the end of refinery maintenance in the world’s largest crude importer, China. Institution views sharply diverge, with OPEC’s latest Monthly Oil Market Report of May forecasting a 2.25 million barrel-per-day increase this year. The Paris-based International Energy Agency’s Oil Market Report of last month meanwhile points to just a 1.06 million-barrel-per-day demand hike.

OPEC+ ministers will next meet to discuss policy steps on Dec. 1.