Just ahead of the production increase beginning in April, the OPEC+ group boosted its oil production to an eight-month high in March, according to the Platts OPEC+ Survey from S&P Global Commodity Insights.
The total oil production from the alliance rose to 41.04 million barrels per day (bpd) in March, up by 30,000 bpd from February.
The producers in OPEC+ who have quotas busted their overall output ceiling by a massive 319,000 bpd, according to the Platts survey.
Kazakhstan remained the producer, exceeding its quota the most.
The OPEC+ producer, which is not part of OPEC, is in negotiations with the companies operating in the country on potentially trimming output to fall in line with the OPEC+ agreements, Kazakhstan’s energy ministry told Russian news agency Interfax on Thursday.
“Kazakhstan was unable to achieve its goal in March and exceeded its commitments under the OPEC+ agreement,” the energy ministry told Interfax when contacted to respond to how its obligations under the OPEC+ deal are progressing.
“In April, we plan to fulfill our commitments and compensate for part of the overproduced volumes,” the Kazakh energy ministry said, adding that it remains committed to the OPEC+ agreements.
Other producers continued to pump above quotas in March. These include Iraq and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—OPEC’s second and third-biggest producers behind Saudi Arabia.
The continued problems with compliance and higher OPEC+ production in March come as the group begins easing the cuts in April and is set to further hike production in May—by triple the expected amount.
OPEC said last week that the decision to go ahead with a large production boost in May could also “provide an opportunity for the participating countries to accelerate their compensation.”
Some analysts have argued that the OPEC+ move to hike output, apart from the publicly-stated “healthier oil market”, could be a way to punish the overproducers.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com