OPEC+ Set to Keep Oil Output Steady for December as War-Disrupted Exports Frame Sunday's Meeting
The seven core members have agreed in principle to leave December targets unchanged, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters — a hold-steady Sunday that Texas producers will read as a signal to wait for the 2027 quota fight.
The oil world's Sunday meeting is expected to change nothing, and that is the news. The seven core OPEC+ members — Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Kazakhstan and Oman — have agreed in principle to keep oil production targets steady for December, three people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Saturday. The online meeting starts at 1200 GMT, 6 a.m. Central, as the group still struggles with export disruptions from the US-Iran war.
The context is a market the war has bent out of shape. Gulf members have been boosting exports that the conflict disrupted for months, yet most are still pumping well below their targets, Reuters reported. Across 2026 the group raised output targets for much of the year and in September completed the phased rollback of a 1.65 million-barrel-per-day supply cut first agreed in 2023; it then held targets steady for October and November, and December is set to follow the same line, in line with expectations that no further policy adjustments come until next year. A separate layer of cuts of about 2 million barrels per day, covering most members, still runs through the end of 2026.
For Texas, the stakes sit in what comes next rather than in December itself. OPEC+ still has to complete a review of members' production capacity this quarter before it can set the 2027 baselines that will determine future quotas and shape plans to unwind those remaining cuts — the numbers against which Permian and Gulf Coast producers will plan their own year. A steady December keeps the current price framework in place while that argument builds; this desk will report the meeting's outcome when it is announced.
