{"id":674401,"date":"2026-01-05T01:12:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T01:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/674401\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T01:12:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T01:12:19","slug":"opec-keeps-oil-output-steady-amid-turmoil-among-members","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/674401\/","title":{"rendered":"OPEC+ keeps oil output steady amid turmoil among members"},"content":{"rendered":"

A woman passes by a logo of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) during the United Nations climate change conference COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan November 13, 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maxim Shemetov | Reuters<\/p>\n

OPEC+ kept oil output unchanged on Sunday after a quick meeting that avoided discussion of the political crises affecting several of the producer group’s members.<\/p>\n

Sunday’s meeting of eight members of OPEC+, which pumps about half the world’s oil, came after oil prices\u00a0fell\u00a0more than 18%<\/a> in 2025 \u2014 their steepest yearly drop since 2020 \u2014 amid growing oversupply concerns.<\/p>\n

Tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE\u00a0flared\u00a0last month over a decade-long conflict in Yemen, when a UAE-aligned group seized territory from the Saudi-backed government. The crisis triggered the\u00a0biggest split\u00a0in decades between the former close allies.<\/p>\n

And on Saturday, the United States\u00a0captured<\/a>\u00a0Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and U.S. President Donald Trump said Washington would take control of the country until a transition to a new administration becomes possible, without saying how this would be achieved.<\/p>\n

“Right now, oil markets are being driven less by supply-demand fundamentals and more by political uncertainty,” said Jorge Leon, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy and a former OPEC official. “And OPEC+ is clearly prioritizing stability over action.<\/p>\n

The eight OPEC+ members \u2014 Saudi Arabia, Russia, the UAE, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Iraq, Algeria and Oman \u2014 raised oil output targets by around 2.9 million barrels per day in 2025, equal to almost 3% of world oil demand, to regain market share.<\/p>\n

The eight members\u00a0agreed\u00a0in November<\/a> to pause output hikes for January, February and March due to relatively low demand in the northern hemisphere winter. Sunday’s brief online meeting affirmed that policy and did not discuss Venezuela, one OPEC+ delegate said.<\/p>\n

The eight countries will next meet on February 1, OPEC+ said.<\/p>\n

OPEC has in the past managed to overcome many internal rifts, such as over the Iran-Iraq War, by prioritizing market management over political disputes.<\/p>\n

Yet the group is facing other crises, with Russian oil exports falling due to U.S. sanctions over its war in Ukraine, and Iran facing protests and U.S. threats of intervention.<\/p>\n

Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves, bigger even than those of OPEC’s leader Saudi Arabia, but its oil production\u00a0has plummeted\u00a0due to years of mismanagement and sanction.<\/p>\n

Analysts said it is unlikely to see any\u00a0meaningful boost\u00a0to crude output for years, even if U.S. oil majors do invest the billions of dollars in the country that\u00a0Trump promised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman passes by a logo of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) during the United Nations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3090],"tags":[5464,51,3085,32,1700,35,37887,6506,16,2723,15,49],"class_list":{"0":"post-674401","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-breaking-news-economy","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-business-news","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-energy","14":"tag-nicolas-maduro","15":"tag-saudi-arabia","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-arab-emirates","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-united-states"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115839837695108573","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}