Crude oil exports from all OPEC oil producers were down in the first 25 days of September compared to the full month of August, according to data from Petro-Logistics cited by commodity analyst Giovanni Staunovo on Wednesday.
Between September 1 and 25, OPEC’s crude oil exports averaged 21.648 million barrels per day (bpd), which was 166,000 bpd lower than the average OPEC crude oil exports for the full month of August.
Crude oil exports out of Iran plunged by more than 700,000 bpd, per Petro-Logistics’ data. Oil exports from the Islamic Republic – exempted from the OPEC+ deal – averaged just 450,000 bpd between September 1 and 25, down by 710,000 bpd compared to the full month of August, according to the data Staunovo cited.
OPEC+ — with OPEC members Iran, Venezuela, and Libya exempted – has a 100,000-bpd higher oil production target for the month of September compared to August. The one-month-only increase, to be reversed in October, means that OPEC+ producers would fall further behind in their actual production versus quotas this month.
In August, OPEC+ continued to vastly underperform its collective oil production target, with the gap between the quota and actual output widening to a massive 3.58 million barrels per day (bpd), according to delegates and OPEC data Argus saw last week.
The 10 OPEC members bound by the pact saw their collective crude oil production hit 1.399 million bpd below the quota, while the non-OPEC producers in the deal were more than 2 million bpd behind quota, at 2.185 million bpd, per OPEC data Argus has seen.
In August, the two biggest laggards in production quotas were Russia of the non-OPEC group and Nigeria of OPEC, the data showed. Russia’s oil production was 1.25 million bpd below its target, while Nigeria was 700,000 bpd behind its quota. Russia’s output is constrained by the Western sanctions following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, while Nigeria has had troubles for years with a lack of investment and oil theft. NB: Charles Kennedy wrote this article for Oilprice.com
