OPEC+ approved a production increase of 206,000 barrels per day beginning in April, ending a three-month pause in output hikes even as US and Israeli military strikes on Iran sent crude prices sharply higher and brought tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to a halt.
The alliance’s eight-member core group — Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Iraq, Algeria, and Oman — reached the decision Sunday during a video conference. Brent crude had closed at $72.48 a barrel on Friday.
By Sunday, over-the-counter prices had climbed roughly 10% to around $80, according to traders, with some analysts warning prices could hit $100 if the conflict deepens.
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The approved increase represents less than 0.2% of global daily demand. Before settling on 206,000 barrels per day, delegates told Reuters the group had debated options ranging from 137,000 to 548,000 barrels per day.
In its official statement, OPEC said the eight participating countries had decided to resume unwinding the 1.65 million barrels per day of voluntary output cuts first announced in April 2023.
The decision came hours after US and Israeli forces struck Iran on Saturday, triggering retaliatory missile and drone barrages against Gulf states that effectively shut down navigation in the Strait of Hormuz — the waterway through which roughly a third of the world’s seaborne oil normally passes. Reports also emerged of damage to Iraq’s southern export terminals, the main outlet for Iraqi crude.
Analysts were skeptical that the modest increase would ease market pressure.
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“This move is unlikely to calm markets,” said Jorge Leon, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy and a former OPEC official. “Prices will respond to developments in the Gulf and the status of shipping flows, not to a relatively small increase in output.”
Ajay Parmar, director of energy and refining at ICIS, pointed to the strait as the pivotal factor. “While the military attacks are themselves supportive for oil prices, the key factor here is the closing of the Strait of Hormuz,” he told the Gulf Today.
OPEC+ holds roughly 3.5 million barrels per day in spare capacity, concentrated primarily in Saudi Arabia and the UAE — the two producers best positioned to offset any prolonged loss of Iranian or Iraqi supply.
However, both face the same bottleneck: exporting additional barrels remains difficult as long as the strait stays closed. Rystad estimates a net supply loss of 8 to 10 million barrels per day if the disruption persists, even accounting for diversions through Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline and an Abu Dhabi bypass route.
The group had initially paused output hikes for the January-to-March period to account for seasonally weaker demand, after its eight-member core raised combined production targets by roughly 2.9 million barrels per day between April and December 2025.
Sunday’s vote brings an end to that pause — though whether the barrels can physically reach markets depends far more on the trajectory of the Iran conflict than on any production quota.
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