The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries not only continued to reduce its crude oil output last December, but it was also able to impose a deeper target cut for the first quarter of the current year, the S&P Global Platts study showed.
OPEC's latest move may not look quite impressive if one was to view it that way, as not everyone in the cartel were pleased with the December cut, and especially since its biggest producer - Saudi Arabia - still did much of the work and compensated for the so-called "cheating" of some members.
Saudi Arabia, as in all previous months, substantially over-complied with its share of the cuts, helping OPEC meets the new quota effective January a month early.
Oil production in December for Saudi Arabia was 9.82 million barrels per day, based on the Platts Report. It is well below the 10.3 million BPD December quota and even below the 10.14 million BPD first quarter 2020 Saudi quota.
The Saudis were still compensating for rogue OPEC members Iraq and Nigeria, who were still not complying with their December quotas despite cutting their respective production, the S&P Global Platts survey found.
The oil cartel's total output of crude oil in December stood at 29.55 million BPD, down by 100,000 BPD compared to November, the survey said.
December's oil production of ten OPEC member countries that have more restrictive quotas as of January, with the exemptions of Venezuela, Libya, and Iran, and Ecuador abandoning the organization on January 1, was 25.06 million BPD, just below the total current quota limit of 10 producers, Platts' survey shows.
The findings of this survey were similar to those of the monthly Reuters survey, which showed earlier this week that OPEC's crude oil production was down further in December as Saudi Arabia continued to lead by example by cutting much more than required and as the largest compliance laggards- Nigeria and Iraq - have shifted towards better compliance with their quotas.
In December, the Saudis trimmed down their crude oil output by another 50,000 BPD, taking over-compliance with the Kingdom to more than 500,000 BPD compared to its quota in the deal, according to the Reuters survey.
Meanwhile, OPEC and its allies agreed at the OPEC+ meeting on December 6 to increase the current reductions by half a million barrels per day in the first quarter this year, when demand is seen to be at its weakest.
Despite Saudi Arabia's commitment to continue to over comply substantially with its share of the cuts, the overall OPEC+ cuts could be as high as 2.1 million barrels per day, OPEC officials said.
