Opec+ triples additional June barrels to deter quota-breaking

• Opec+ adding June barrels
• Aims to increase market share
• Iraq and Kazakhstan breaking quota

Saudi Arabia and seven members of Opec+ will triple the volume of barrels they add to the market in June, as part of the kingdom’s new strategy to squeeze quota-busting members and boost market share, experts said.

Saudi Arabia and seven other countries implementing voluntary cuts decided in an online May 3 meeting to add 411,000 barrels per day (bpd) in June “in view of the current healthy market fundamentals, as reflected in the low oil inventories,” Opec said in a statement. 

“It indeed looks like a change of Saudi plan, more focused on market share, allowing prices to fall, as it was somewhat futile, given expectations of declining global growth, to continue cuts,” Karen Young, senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, told AGBI.

The group members had previously planned the gradual unwinding of 2.2 million bpd between April and the end of September 2026, but decided to triple the volumes for May and now June, shocking oil markets, which plummeted on Monday.

Prices have plunged to a four-year low after Donald Trump’s April 2 unleashing of a global tariff war and a surprising decision by Opec+ for May production the following day.

“We continue to call this a ‘managed’ unwind of cuts and not a fight for market share,” UBS strategist Giovanni Staunovo said in a May 3 note. 

“Despite trade tensions and ongoing economic growth concerns, we still anticipate a further seasonal increase in global oil demand over the coming months.”

The incremental volumes for April, May and June will add about 1 million bpd out of the 2.2 million bpd voluntary cuts, which exclude group-wide curbs yet to be unwound.

“The gradual increases may be paused or reversed subject to evolving market conditions,” Opec said.

“This flexibility will allow the group to continue to support oil market stability. The eight Opec+ countries also noted that this measure will provide an opportunity for the participating countries to accelerate their compensation.”

• Opec+ accelerates oil output hikes despite weak demand
• Saudi Arabia signals it can live with lower oil prices
• Opec+ to consider further oil output increase for June

Since 2024, Iraq and Kazakhstan have been the biggest countries guilty of breaking their production quotas but had vowed to make up for it by implementing “compensation” cuts.

They failed to deliver on these promises, with Kazakhstan pumping more than 300,000 bpd above its March quota alone.

“We continue to believe weak compliance of countries such as Kazakhstan and Iraq played a role in supporting a faster unwind of the production cuts, as free-riding is not helping the group’s cohesion,” said Staunovo. 

“Since some of the eight countries with voluntary production cuts are already producing above their production cap level, the effective production increase level would likely be lower than 411,000 bpd,” he said.