The great OPEC+ reset

The quick, unified and decisive strategy to return all the barrels from the hefty tranche of cuts from the eight producers involved in voluntary curbs signals a shift and sets the tone for the path ahead

OPEC+'s gradual unwinding of voluntary production cuts could be seen as an epic three-part tale that contains a protagonist with various identities. The first instalment of the trilogy involved a thrilling and somewhat surprising move to fully unwind the 2.2m b/d from the ‘OPEC+8’, which includes those producers —Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman—taking on the burden of additional cuts. That culminated in a rather predictable and comforting finale of an announced production increase of 547,000b/d for September. Now that the November 2023 tranche is soon to be fully unwound, the focus is how the OPEC+8 plotline will unfold for the second part—the April 2023