OPEC+ pushes oil capacity review to mid-November as data lag
The group says not all member countries have submitted output data needed to complete the exercise
Published
OPEC+ has delayed its assessment of members' maximum sustainable oil production capacity until mid-November, according to sources, after not all countries submitted the required data in time.
The exercise is meant to set each member's baseline capacity, which will feed into 2027 output targets, according to Argus Media. Past attempts at this kind of assessment have caused friction inside the group. Angola left OPEC in 2024 after it was given a lower production target than it wanted, Argus Media reported.
The process has also been complicated by sanctions. Iran's capacity will be set using its average output over August, September and October 2026 rather than a direct technical review, because it is excluded from the audit being run by a US firm for 19 other members, Yahoo Finance reported, citing the OPEC secretariat. Russia and Venezuela, also under sanctions, are being assessed separately by a non-US firm. Degolyer & Macnaughton is the company carrying out the assessment for the other 19 states, according to TASS. As of late April, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said the goal was to finish the review by the end of 2026, TASS reported, suggesting the timeline had already slipped before this latest delay.
The delay is procedural and does not change OPEC+'s existing policy of holding quotas steady, a position confirmed at the group's recent meetings. Incomplete data submissions have been a recurring problem for OPEC+ coordination, and pushing the assessment to mid-November only shifts when the group formally measures spare capacity, not whether it plans to change output. With quotas already expected to roll over and exports from Saudi Arabia and Iraq holding steady, the delay changes little for crude oil pricing in the near term.