Global Oil & Gas: Higher OPEC production threatens Algiers deal

The IEA also said that OPEC’s rising production threatens to overwhelm the planned production cuts announced in Algeria last month. OPEC’s oil output rose by 160,000 barrels per day in September to an all-time high of 33.64 mb/d.

Gains from Iraq, Libya, and Iran pushed production higher, while the Gulf States continued to pump at elevated levels. The problem with that is that OPEC would need to somehow find cuts on the order of at least 600,000 barrels per day just to reach the upper end of the range (32.5 mb/d to 33.0 mb/d) that it said it would lower output to. That may be difficult to pull off and would likely require Saudi Arabia to do almost all of the heavy lifting.

Goldman Sachs agreed – in a note to clients the investment bank said that while the odds of a deal in November have become a “greater possibility,” the cuts might be dwarfed by rising production from within OPEC.

“Higher production from Libya, Nigeria and Iraq are reducing the odds of such a deal rebalancing the oil market in 2017,” Goldman analysts wrote.