The OPEC+ group is expected to maintain its oil production policy unchanged this weekend and affirm a pause in output hikes in March even as Brent Crude prices hit $70 per barrel this week for the first time in five months, delegates from the alliance told Reuters on Friday.
The OPEC+ group meets online on February 1 to discuss output levels, and it is widely expected to keep oil production levels flat in March, as it had pledged in November to pause hikes for the first quarter.
Early this month, the eight OPEC+ members that have been implementing cuts since 2023 – Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman – reaffirmed the decision to pause monthly increments during the first quarter of the year.
The decision was first taken in November 2025 and was confirmed at two consecutive meetings in December and January.
On Sunday, OPEC+ is unlikely to take any production decisions beyond March, according to three of five anonymous delegates who spoke to Reuters.
Even before Brent Crude prices topped $70 per barrel, four delegates from the alliance told Bloomberg earlier this week that OPEC+ would not change the policy at the Sunday meeting.
As of Monday, OPEC+ had not yet held discussions ahead of Sunday’s meeting, but it does not see any need of changing the policy despite the expected oversupply and the geopolitical developments that could influence supply from OPEC members Iran and Venezuela, delegates told Bloomberg.
The group will likely wait out the first quarter of the year, typically the weakest quarter for demand of any year, and see how supply could be affected – if at all – from the geopolitical flare-ups in recent weeks. These include, so far, the new oil order in Venezuela, the situation in Iran, and the pace of Russian supply amid the U.S. sanctions on top producers Rosneft and Lukoil, and the EU ban on imports of oil products processed from Russian crude.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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