Oil alliance OPEC+ zeroes in on group compliance after postponing output hike

Key Points

• Two OPEC+ delegates, who could only comment anonymously because of the sensitivity of the talks, told CNBC that the coalition has sharpened its focus on the conformity of its members.
• Undercompliance has been a repeat bane of the OPEC+ alliance, casting a shadow over the credibility of its intentions to cut output.
• Oil prices dropped sharply on Thursday, following a Financial Times report stating that OPEC+ de facto leader Saudi Arabia was prepared to suffer through a low-price environment.

The OPEC+ alliance is once more cracking down on group compliance with oil output cuts, as it presses ahead with a three-pronged plan of formal and voluntary production trims. 

Two OPEC+ delegates, who could only comment anonymously because of the sensitivity of the talks, told CNBC that the coalition has sharpened its focus on the conformity of its members with their output pledges, amid repeat overproduction from heavyweight members such as Iraq and Kazakhstan.

Russia, whose barrels are sanctioned in the West and transported with lower visibility across a shadow fleet, has also at times exceeded its assigned quota under the alliance's formal policy, one of the sources said.

Eight OPEC+ members, including kingpin Saudi Arabia, were due to begin returning 2.2 million barrels per day of voluntary cuts to the market starting in October. Earlier this month, they postponed this phaseout to start in December instead. OPEC+ nations are operating two other production declines: under official policy, they will produce a combined 39.725 million bpd next year. The same aforementioned eight members are separately curbing their output by another 1.7 million bpd throughout 2025, also on a voluntary basis.

Undercompliance has been a repeat bane of the OPEC+ alliance, casting a shadow over the credibility of its intentions to cut output – at a time of market uncertainty exacerbated by war in the hydrocarbon-rich Middle East, recent stock sell-offs and a fragile post-Covid recovery in the world's top crude importer, China.

Oil prices have remained subdued for the better part of the year and dropped sharply on Thursday, following a Financial Times report stating that OPEC+ de facto leader Saudi Arabia was prepared to suffer through a low-price environment and abandon an unofficial $100 per barrel price target to bolster its output after December.

Brent crude futures with November expiry were trading at $71.44 per barrel at 2:30 p.m. London time, down 0.17% from the Thursday settlement. The front-month November Nymex WTI contract was at $67.75 per barrel, flat from the previous session's close.

"I would read it more as the Saudis sending some warning to the cheaters within OPEC. Because I think Saudi Arabia has seen most of the burden of the production cuts," Carole Nakhle, founder and CEO of Crystol Energy, told CNBC's Dan Murphy on Friday, referring to the FT report.

Speaking of the group's possible approach to price targeting, Nakhle added, "Of course, the higher the better for them, but nothing has been set in stone."

OPEC+ ministers, including Saudi Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, have previously insisted that their policies target diminishing global stocks rather than an explicit price, although decisions to tighten supplies typically offer support to crude futures in the long term. But several member countries, including the Saudi kingdom, underpin their annual budgets on the assumption of a fiscal break-even price — which the International Monetary Fund estimates must hit $96.20 for Riyadh to meet its obligations this year.

Riyadh is locked in an extensive and costly program spanning 14 giga-projects, including the futuristic desert development Neom, to materialize Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's ambition of economic diversification away from reliance on hydrocarbon revenues.

Despite the economic pressures of enforcing the Vision 2030 program, Saudi Arabia has yet to change its OPEC+ approach and does not target an explicit oil price, one of the OPEC+ sources told CNBC, noting that Riyadh can reshape its budget or shore it up through alternative, nonoil revenues.

Earlier this month, Saudi Minister for Investment Khalid al-Falih pushed back against lingering skepticism over the country's economic diversification plan, touting "green shoring" investment opportunities to lure foreign financing.

The prospect of Saudi Arabia weaponizing its vast production capacity to settle OPEC+ disputes is not without precedent. Back in 2020, Riyadh and Moscow engaged in a weekslong price war in the wake of the abrupt but fleeting dissolution of the OPEC+ alliance, flooding the market at a time of already excess supply and dried-up demand amid the spreading Covid-19 pandemic — and briefly ushering WTI futures into negative territory.  

OPEC+ receives monthly production figures — which assist it to calculate member compliance — from seven independent secondary sources. The coalition's Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee, a technical group that oversees OPEC+ conformity, is due to next meet on Oct. 2.