OPEC+ formally keeps December oil targets steady at about 31 million barrels a day, leaving the hard 2027 call for 29 November
OPEC+ confirmed on Sunday that its seven core producers will hold December output targets at September levels — Saudi Arabia at 10.478 million barrels a day and Russia at 9.949 million — as war disruption keeps most members pumping below target and Brent crude trades above $117 a barrel.
OPEC+ has formally confirmed that it will keep oil production targets unchanged for December, turning an earlier agreement in principle into a decided policy. The group’s seven core members — Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Kazakhstan and Oman — decided during an online meeting on Sunday to “maintain September 2026 required production for December 2026” after reviewing global market conditions and the outlook, according to the group’s statement reported by The National and by Reuters via Channel NewsAsia.
The numbers behind the decision show the scale of the pause. The joint production targets for the seven members amount to about 31 million barrels a day for December, unchanged from September, October and November. Saudi Arabia has the largest allocation at 10.478 million barrels a day, followed by Russia at 9.949 million and Iraq at 4.431 million. Kuwait’s target stands at 2.676 million, Kazakhstan’s at 1.628 million, Algeria’s at 1.007 million and Oman’s at 841,000 barrels a day. The statement also reiterated the members’ collective commitment to full conformity with the Declaration of Cooperation, and said producers will continue holding monthly meetings, with the next gathering scheduled for 29 November.
The decision extends a pattern that has held through the final quarter of 2026. The seven members completed the phased rollback of a 1.65 million-barrel-a-day voluntary cut, first agreed in 2023, in September. At earlier meetings they kept targets steady for October and November, and they are keeping a further layer of cuts of about 2 million barrels a day, agreed in 2022 and covering most members, in place until the end of the year. In other words, December is not a new direction: it is the continuation of a deliberate hold, with no additional production adjustment and no timetable announced for increasing output.
The reason for the hold is disruption, not calm. The war involving the United States, Israel and Iran, which began on 28 February, has severely disrupted Gulf exports for months, and most OPEC+ members are still pumping well below their targets because of it. The Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries about a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas, has been effectively shut since the fighting began, and Gulf members have been boosting exports that were disrupted for months even as they remain below quota. That gap between target and actual output is one reason a decision to hold targets steady does not translate directly into steady supply on the market.
Prices underline how tight that market feels. Oil prices settled up more than 2 per cent on Friday to hit six-month highs and post a fourth straight monthly gain. Brent crude was up 2.4 per cent at $117.64 a barrel, after briefly touching $118, while West Texas Intermediate gained 2.08 per cent to settle at $104.12 a barrel, according to The National. Channel NewsAsia, carrying the Reuters report, put Brent at almost $118 a barrel, the highest since April, and linked the jump to traders bracing for a potential escalation in the Iran war after the US midterm elections on 3 November.
Analysts quoted in the Reuters report described Sunday’s decision as the straightforward part of a much harder sequence. “Today’s decision was the easy one,” said Jorge Leon, an analyst at Rystad. “The much more important test comes at the November 29 ministerial meeting, when OPEC+ will decide its 2027 production framework.” That meeting will bring together all 21 members of the wider group, not just the seven core producers who decide monthly targets, and analysts expect it to settle the 2027 quotas that will shape how the remaining cuts are unwound.
Getting to that November decision requires a piece of work that is itself complicated by the war. The group needs to complete a review of members’ production capacity during the fourth quarter, because those baselines will determine future quotas. Reuters reported in October that the Iran war had disrupted projects to expand capacity across the Middle East, throwing estimates of future production potential into uncertainty, and the review is now expected to be completed by mid-November. Without agreed baselines, the 2027 negotiation cannot be settled on firm numbers — a practical obstacle that makes the 29 November meeting harder than Sunday’s.
The wider outlook adds another layer of uncertainty. The International Energy Agency and other forecasters have warned of excess supply in 2027 should Gulf flows return to normal, which would leave OPEC+ facing a surplus just as disrupted barrels come back. Leon put the dilemma plainly: “OPEC+ faces an extremely difficult call for 2027. The group has to plan around huge uncertainty over the US-Iran war, the pace of recovery through the Strait of Hormuz, and the size of the surplus that could emerge once disrupted barrels return.” Holding December steady avoids making that call early, but it does not resolve it.
The security backdrop to the meeting was also visible in the Gulf itself. The National noted that attacks on commercial vessels in and around the Strait of Hormuz reached their highest monthly level of the Iran-US war in October, with at least 35 attacks reported according to maritime incident tracking data. Increasing attacks from Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels on Saudi Arabia have added to regional tension, and on Saturday Riyadh said its air defences had intercepted and destroyed a hostile drone in the Saudi capital, following dozens of Houthi strikes on Saudi assets over recent weeks. Those incidents are part of why traders are pricing in risk even when headline targets do not change.
Figures in this post were checked at publication time on Sunday evening, 1 November 2026 (Pakistan time), from Friday’s settlements as reported by The National and by Reuters via Channel NewsAsia: Brent crude $117.64 a barrel, up 2.4 per cent, and West Texas Intermediate $104.12 a barrel, up 2.08 per cent, with the joint OPEC+ December target of about 31 million barrels a day and the country allocations given above. What happens next is now dated: monthly producer meetings continue, the capacity review is expected by mid-November, and the full ministerial meeting on 29 November is where the 2027 framework — and with it, the question of when the remaining cuts unwind — is expected to be decided.
This post is market news information only, not financial advice.
