OPEC+ to Weigh Bigger Hike After Iran Strike, Delegate Says
(Bloomberg) -- OPEC+ will consider the option of a larger supply increase when key members meet on Sunday after the US and Israel launched an attack on Iran, according to a delegate.
The group led by Saudi Arabia and Russia was expected to resume modest production increases from April after a three month supply freeze, several delegates said earlier this week. In the fourth quarter, the producers had added monthly increments of 137,000 barrels a day in an ongoing strategy to reclaim global market share.
The attacks, and signs Tehran is lashing out in response, bring to a head tensions that traders have been monitoring closely all year, helping to boost prices despite widespread expectations of a surplus. Futures climbed to a seven-month high of $73 a barrel in London on Friday. They’re are up 19% this year on an array of output disruptions, sanctions, ongoing Chinese stockpiling — and worries about a renewed attack.
President Donald Trump said the US is undertaking “major combat operations” against the Islamic Republic, shortly after Israel launched “preventive” airstrikes on targets in Iran. There have been retaliatory strikes on US military bases in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait.
The bombardment comes two days after delegations from the Islamic Republic and US met in Switzerland for a third round of negotiations on Iran’s nuclear activities. While Iran sounded upbeat about the trajectory of the talks, Trump said on Friday he wasn’t happy with how they were unfolding.
Saudi Arabia, de facto leader of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, had already accelerated oil exports along with some other producers in recent days. Last year, Riyadh temporarily surged supply amid the US bombardment of Iranian nuclear facilities.
The vulnerability of regional energy flows became immediately clear, with the Houthis — a Yemen-based militia with ties to Tehran — pledging to resume attacks on shipping the Red Sea corridor.
Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency also reported an explosion at Kharg Island, the location of a key Iranian oil export terminal. There were no details given. Oil facilities weren’t targeted during the last attack in June and Trump has pledged to bring fuel prices down.
OPEC+ already seemed on track to resume a gradual revival of production halted several years earlier — a process suspended during the first quarter — in what some delegates explained as a reclamation of the market share ceded in recent years to rivals like US shale drillers.
Under the guidance of Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, OPEC+ has often adopted a cautious policy in the face of geopolitical events, opting to see whether they have a material impact before acting. The group didn’t collectively adjust course after last summer’s American attack on Iran, or when the US seized Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro at the start of the year.
Nonetheless, oil markets have confounded expectations this year.
While supplies are exceeding demand, a range of disruptions from North America to Kazakhstan and Russia has tempered the excess. Much of the overhang consists of either sanctioned barrels from Russia or Iran — which are unavailable to the general market — or else is being scooped up by China for strategic reserves.
(Updates with detail throughout.)
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