OPEC's crude oil production dropped by 210,000 barrels per day (bpd) in October compared to the previous month after the cartel and the wider OPEC+ group reversed the small output increase in September.
The crude oil production of all 13 OPEC members, including those exempt from the OPEC+ pact - Venezuela, Iran, and Libya - averaged 29.49 million bpd in October, according to secondary sources in the organization's closely-watched Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) published on Monday.
Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of OPEC and its top producer, saw its production decline by 149,000 bpd to average 10.838 million bpd last month, as OPEC+ decided in early September to reverse a 100,000 bpd increase in target oil production, which was only intended for the month of September.
Saudi Arabia's production dropped the most among OPEC members and was below the targeted production level of 11.004 million bpd per the schedule the OPEC+ meeting had adopted. The Kingdom self-reported higher production for October than secondary sources' estimates, at 10.957 million bpd, down by 84,000 bpd compared to September.
Production in Angola saw the second-steepest drop in OPEC producers in October, but it wasn't the result of a conscious reduction since the African producer has been lagging behind its quota for many months. Angola's crude oil production fell by 78,000 bpd to 1.067 million bpd in October, according to OPEC's secondary sources. Angola's target, however, is much higher, at 1.525 million bpd, meaning that the country was nearly 500,000 bpd below target.
Over the coming months, OPEC's production is set to decline further after the OPEC+ alliance decided to reduce its collective target by 2 million bpd for November. Although the actual cut is expected to be around half that number, at 1.1 million bpd, it still is the biggest cut since the record production reduction announced in April 2020 when oil demand plunged at the start of the pandemic.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More