The OPEC+ members currently participating in voluntary production cuts will meet this Saturday, May 3, instead of Monday, May 5, according to Kpler’s Amena Bakr on X. The call is set for noon Vienna time, with the agenda focused on “consensus building around maintaining the sped-up increment of 411K for June.”
Brent crude had slipped nearly 1% by late Friday morning, trading at $61.56. It’s a price level not seen since early 2021—and one that puts most OPEC+ budgets underwater. For producers already grappling with restricted output, prices below $65 are a growing fiscal headache.
The accelerated meeting follows mounting tensions within the group. Reports suggest Saudi Arabia is signaling it can live with lower prices—a not-so-subtle message to chronic overproducers like Iraq and Kazakhstan. The 411,000 bpd production increase originally floated as a wake-up call may now be cemented into policy, signaling a strategic shift in Riyadh’s approach.
OPEC+ has pledged to offset 4.57 million bpd of overproduction by mid-2026. But enforcement remains patchy. Saturday’s call will test whether Riyadh and Moscow can still steer the ship—or whether quota politics are about to devolve into a full-blown battle for market share.
Meanwhile, a Bloomberg survey released Thursday showed that OPEC’s actual output fell by 200,000 bpd in April, down to 27.24 million—contradicting the group’s planned increase.
Market pessimism is already pricing in a production hike. But April’s figures are a reminder: announced increases don’t always materialize. Whether Saudi Arabia will keep absorbing the blow while others cheat—or start using price as a weapon to enforce discipline—won’t be decided in a Vienna video call. It’ll be decided at the wellhead.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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