The OPEC+ group of producers raised their compliance with the ongoing collective production cuts to 116 percent in August, up from 109 percent compliance in July, sources from the alliance told Reuters on Tuesday.
The OPEC cartel saw its crude oil production rise by 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) in August, data from secondary sources in the monthly report showed. Even at higher quotas, the 10 OPEC members part of the OPEC+ pact pumped less than estimated by tanker tracking surveys and less than the OPEC overall quota in the agreement.
Total crude oil production from all 13 OPEC members averaged 26.76 million bpd in August, according to secondary sources OPEC cited in its closely watched Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) last week. The August production was 150,000 bpd higher than the July crude output, as the OPEC+ alliance returns more barrels to the market as per the latest deal reached in July.
Despite the higher production, OPEC was actually pumping at some 10 percent below its overall quota for the 10 members bound by the OPEC+ pact in August, due to outages and technical difficulties in countries such as Nigeria and Angola, Bloomberg noted earlier this month.
According to estimates by TASS based on OPEC’s secondary sources data in the MOMR, the cartel complied with the pact at 121 percent in August, compared to a compliance rate of 115 percent in July.
Russia, the largest producer of the non-OPEC group in the OPEC+ alliance, saw its crude oil and condensate production slightly drop to 10.43 million bpd in August from 10.46 million bpd in July, according to Reuters estimates based on Russian energy ministry data. There was no immediate explanation as to what caused Russian oil and condensate output to slip. Russia’s condensate production—estimated at around 800,000 bpd-900,000 bpd—is not subject to the OPEC+ deal, but Moscow doesn’t report separate figures for condensate and crude output.
In the first two weeks of September, however, Russia is estimated to have ramped up oil production.
