OPEC+ plans September quota increase followed by three-month pause

OPEC+ is set to approve a modest bump in oil output for September, then do something it rarely does well: nothing. The group’s seven core members will meet virtually on August 2 to sign off on a 188,000 barrel-per-day increase, followed by a deliberate freeze on any further quota adjustments for at least three months. The September increase represents the final piece of a much larger puzzle. OPEC+ has been slowly unwinding 1.65 million bpd in voluntary cuts that were first agreed upon back in 2023. This is the last slice. After September’s quota bump takes effect, OPEC+ plans to keep roughly 2 million bpd in cuts firmly in place while it conducts an internal capacity review. The results of that review will shape new production targets expected to kick in starting January 2027. No final agreements on 2027 quotas have been reached. The core producers involved in these discussions include Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Kazakhstan, and Oman. Geopolitics complicating the math Escalating tensions between the US, Israel, and Iran have already constrained actual production increases, even though higher output targets were technically set for June, July, and August of this yea...