The oil prices are falling. Economists cut predictions for global economic growth. Oil giants report lower profit.
But on Saturday, eight countries that belong to the oil cartel, known as OPEC Plus, said that they would add about 411,000 barrels of oil per day in June. The movement, which follows a similar step of the group as Increase oil production During their April meeting there is a major policy shift that will wrinkle through the wider energy industry, reach the profit of oil companies and cut cuts is forced.
The group said in a statement that the market was “healthy” and noticed that oil inventories remained low.
Saudi Arabia, the facto leader of OPEC Plus, indicates that it is reluctant to stop millions of barrels a day that could produce it, especially when other members of the group, such as Kazakhstan and Iraq, do not observe their agreed production ceilings.
“The position of Saudi Arabia in particular is that they no longer want to be the ones who bear the toughest burden if other countries in the group do not have sufficient commitment to contribute,” said Richard Bronze, the head of geopolitics in Energy aspects, a research agency in London.
The demand for oil is not considerably weakened. Oil consumption rose by 1.2 million barrels per day in the first quarter of 2025, the most since 2023, according to the International Energy Agency in Paris. Analysts there and elsewhere, however, lowered their predictions for the demand pending disruption of global trading tensions, which have already saved prizes.
The prices of Brent Crude, the International Benchmark, have fallen almost 20 percent since 3 April, when the Saudis and other producers indicated that they would increase production.
The price of West Texas Intermediate, the American benchmark, slid this week under $ 60 per barrel, a threshold where many producers can no longer make a profit, and analysts say that prices could fall further. Under such pressure, producers with higher costs, such as shale bailers in the United States, who have increased the output in recent years, while OPEC limits production of production, can be forced to reduce.
“To the extent that OPEC Plus cannot or will not reduce the prices at any time, the burden to strengthen them at other higher producers would,” analysts wrote at S&P Global Commodity Insights.
Saudi -Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, now considered the most important decision -makers among oil producers, can also be more inclined to strengthen President Trump’s ambitions, who are expected to visit Saudi -Aarabia and other countries in the Middle East than to help his predecessor, Joseph R. Bides Jr.
This price fall “represents one of the most important economic clear places” for the Trump administration, Helima Croft, head of global raw materials at RBC Capital Markets, an investment bank, wrote to customers in a recent memorandum. Mr. Trump has promised to lower the energy costs, including gas prices, for consumers.
Saudi Aarabia and the United Arab Emirates may hope for a few concessions in deals in defense or artificial intelligence, where both countries have strong ambitions, analysts say. Already, The Trump administration revives conversations About a nuclear partnership with Saudi Arabia.
Opec Plus would usually clamber to reduce stocks to strengthen markets. Such calculations have clearly changed under a smaller group of eight Opec Plus members, including Saudi -Arabia, Russia and the United Arab Emirates. Instead, they have drew an earlier agreement to limit their production by approximately 2.2 million barrels per day.
Lately, this smaller group has gathered to close deals, leaving the rest of Opec Plus in the back seat. Saudi Arabia, which seems to run the process, wins the largest of the rises.
“It really comes down to whether Saudi Aarabia and the United Arab Emirates are willing to further reduce production to support prices,” said Bhushan Bahree, an executive director at S&P Global.
So far the answer is no.
The United Arab Emirates is one of the many producers, together with Kazakhstan and Iraq, who has an interest in increasing production to accommodate the extra output of oil and gas investments by international companies.
According to the International Energy Agency, Kazakhstan produced around 400,000 barrels a day above his OPEC PLUS ceiling in March. In the same period, Iraq surpassed its ceiling with 440,000 barrels a day and the United Arab Emirates with 350,000.
Kazakhstan seems reluctant to curb investors such as Chevron and Exxon Mobilwho recently spent dozens of billions of dollars to increase production to a million barrels per day in the Tengiz Oil Field in the country.
“We have no discussions about OPEC or OPEC PLUS goals,” Mike Wirth, Chevron’s chairman and Chief Executive, told analysts on Friday during a profit call. Mr Wirth added that Tengiz was an important source of income for the government of Kazakhstan and was not “packed” historically.
“We follow the national interests, strictly observing our international obligations,” said the Ministry of Kazakhstan Energy in an E -mail statement.
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