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OPEC+ further hikes oil output Estelle.Bronkhorst Mon, 11/03/2025 - 06:00 LONDON - The eight key members of the OPEC+ alliance, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, on Sunday said they had agreed a further slight hike to their oil production.The 137,000-barrels-per-day hike will apply from December and remain at that level for the following three months, signifying a pause in what had been regular increases since April this year, the group said in a statement following a virtual meeting.The announced increase, which tallied with analyst expectations, has been seen as a bid by the key members of OPEC+ -- known as the Voluntary Eight (V8) -- to gain greater market share.Since April, the V8 group -- comprising Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman -- has boosted production by around 2.7 million barrels per day (bpd) in total.The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (OPEC+) have sped up output increases at a pace very few had anticipated at the beginning of the year, following a long period of producers seeking to combat price erosion by implementing production cuts to make oil scarcer.But faced with growing competition, particularly from US shale oil producers, gaining a larger share of the oil market has become the group s main priority.The group s change in strategy is working to a certain degree , said Ole Hvalbye, commodities analyst at SEB bank, just ahead of Sunday s announced production increase. Supply by US shale producers is not increasing anymore, it s going sideways , he told AFP, adding that there is less investment in new US production .As in previous months, the V8 group cited low oil inventories to justify the latest increase.According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), crude oil inventories in the United States have recently recorded a sharp drop, allowing the price of a barrel of Brent, the global benchmark for crude, to remain steady at around $65.Adding barrels to the market exposes the V8 group to a drop in prices that cuts into its profits, analysts say.

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