OPEC oil output hits 2018 high

Salma El Wardany and Grant Smith September 04, 2018

CAIRO and LONDON (Bloomberg) -- OPEC crude production rose in August to the highest level this year as a recovery in Libyan output helped to offset a cut in Iranian exports due to U.S. sanctions.

The group’s 15 members, which now include the Republic of Congo, collectively produced 32.74 MMbpd last month, an increase of 420,000 bpd from July, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts, oil companies and ship-tracking data.

OPEC and its allies agreed in June to increase combined output by 1 MMbpd to meet consumer demand and prevent a sharp rise in prices. That followed U.S. President Donald Trump urging the group to act to prevent further rises.

Libya was the biggest contributor to the rise in output across the group, pumping 970,000 bpd last month compared to 660,000 bpd in July. The country’s biggest oil field, Sharara, has restarted following a kidnapping, a person familiar with the situation said on Sunday. Even though Libya’s recovery boosts OPEC’s combined oil output, the country remains an unreliable supplier as civil strife continues to disrupt its petroleum industry.

The second-largest production increase came from Iraq and the United Arab Emirates: each raised daily oil output by 80,000 bbl last month.

Iran suffered the biggest output drop across the group, of 240,000 bpd, pushing its production down to 3.5 MMbpd. Even though sanctions don’t officially take effect until November, Iran is already seeing customers flee as the U.S. imposes penalties on buyers after Trump quit a 2015 nuclear accord with the country.

Top exporter Saudi Arabia increased its production by 20,000 bpd in August from a revised level of 10.37 MMbpd a month earlier. The country had indicated it would make a much larger output boost in July, but held back after it couldn’t find enough buyers to justify pumping crude at record levels.

Russia, which is cooperating with OPEC along with several other non-members, kept pumping at near post-Soviet records last month as it reaped the benefits from the June deal to ease output caps. The country produced an average of 11.21 MMbopd in August, according to data emailed Sunday by the Russian Energy Ministry’s CDU-TEK unit. Volumes were little changed from July, when output soared to just shy of a peak in 2016.