LONDON/MOSCOW: OPEC+ countries agreed to maintain group-wide oil output quotas for 2026 in a meeting on Sunday, and also agreed on a mechanism to assess members’ maximum oil production capacity, OPEC said in a statement.
Eight OPEC+ countries, holding a separate meeting on Sunday, also have an agreement in principle to maintain a pause in their output hikes for the first quarter of 2026, an OPEC+ source and a person familiar with OPEC+ talks told Reuters. The meeting of OPEC+, which pumps half of the world’s oil, comes during a fresh US effort to broker a Russia-Ukraine peace deal, which could add to oil supply if sanctions on Russia are eased. If the deal fails, Russia could see its supply curbed further by sanctions.
OPEC+ groups the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies led by Russia. OPEC+ has paused oil output hikes for the first quarter of 2026 after releasing some 2.9 million barrels per day into the market since April 2025. The group still has about 3.24 million bpd of output cuts in place, representing around 3% of global demand, and the Sunday meeting did not alter those.
OPEC said the group had approved a mechanism to assess members’ maximum production capacity to be used for setting output quotas from 2027.