By Olesya Astakhova, Ahmad Ghaddar, Alex Lawler and Maha El Dahan
LONDON/MOSCOW (Reuters) – OPEC+ agreed on Sunday to a small increase in oil output for December and a pause in increases in the first quarter of next year, as the producer group moderates plans to regain market share due to growing fears of a supply glut.
OPEC+ has raised its production targets by around 2.9 million barrels per day – or about 2.7% of global supply – since April, but slowed the pace from October amid predictions of an imminent supply glut.
New Western sanctions on OPEC+ member Russia add to the strategy’s challenges, as Moscow may struggle to boost production further after the United States and Britain imposed new measures on top producers Rosneft and Lukoil.
On Sunday, the eight OPEC+ members participating in the group’s monthly meeting (Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Kazakhstan and Algeria) agreed to increase December production targets by 137,000 barrels per day, the same as for October and November.
“Beyond December, due to seasonality, the eight countries also decided to pause production increases in January, February and March 2026,” the group said in a statement.
Oil prices fell to a five-month low of around $60 a barrel on Oct. 20 on concerns that oversupply was building, but have since recovered to around $65 a barrel due to Russian sanctions and optimism about U.S. talks with its trading partners.
“OPEC+ is blinking, but it’s a calculated blink,” said Rystad’s Jorge León. “Sanctions on Russian producers have injected a new layer of uncertainty into supply forecasts, and the group knows that overproducing now could backfire in the future.”
“By pausing, OPEC+ is protecting prices, projecting unity and buying time to see how sanctions on Russian barrels play out,” León said.
January to March is the weakest quarter for oil supply and demand balances, and by pausing OPEC+ is showing it is proactively managing the market, said Amrita Sen of Energy Aspects.
Giovanni Staunovo of UBS said oil prices were unlikely to move much when trading opens on Monday, as December’s modest production increase had been widely anticipated.
OPEC+ had been reducing production for several years until April and the cuts peaked in March, amounting to 5.85 million bpd in total.
The reductions were made up of three elements: voluntary cuts of 2.2 million bpd, 1.65 million bpd by eight members and another 2 million bpd by the entire group.
The group has been unwinding voluntary cuts, while the last element of the group-wide cuts will remain in place until the end of 2026. Eight OPEC+ members will meet again on November 30, the same day a full OPEC+ meeting will be held.
(Writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Jan Harvey)