The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies continue to underperform their increasingly lofty oil production targets, with the group falling a record 700,000 barrels per day short of its collective quotas in January.
OPEC’s 13 countries raised output by 150,000 bpd from December, pumping 28.19 million bpd of crude, while the nine non-OPEC partners, led by Russia, only managed to add a meager 10,000 bpd, producing 13.99 million bpd, the survey found.
In all, 14 out of the 18 members with quotas underproduced their targets, pushing OPEC+ compliance to 120.8 per cent, the highest since the group instituted record output cuts in spring 2020 to pull the oil market out of its pandemic crash, according to Platts calculations.
Nigeria, plagued by numerous operational and technical problems over the past year, is one such example, posting the largest increase among OPEC+ members in January to hit a nine-month high, according to the Platts survey.
The country pumped 1.57 million bpd, up by 190,000 bpd from December, aided by a recovery in key export grade Forcados. Even so, it was well under its quota of 1.683 million bpd.
Despite strong gains from the group’s core Gulf members and Russia, along with a resurgent Nigeria, disruptions in several OPEC+ countries, including Venezuela, Kazakhstan, Libya and Iraq, limited the bloc’s growth.
The coalition’s struggles to keep pace with its monthly 400,000 bpd quota hikes have drawn a chorus of criticism from its key crude customers, including the US and India, who say the group should tap its shrinking spare production capacity to bring oil prices down from recent seven-year highs.
However, OPEC+ officials, who are next scheduled to meet March 2 to determine April output targets, say prices have overshot levels that current market fundamentals would indicate, driven by rising geopolitical risks in the Ukraine and elsewhere.
And they say that many underperforming countries face only temporary setbacks that can quickly be reversed.
