DUBAI, October 6. /TASS/. The OPEC-Russia partnership has become one of the alliance's key achievements in recent years, Dave Ernsberger, co-chairman of S&P Global Commodity Insights, said in an interview with TASS.
"The cooperation between OPEC and Russia has been one of the big achievements of OPEC in the last 10 years. So, I think that OPEC will go out of its way to maintain good collaboration with Russia. That's one of the things they're most proud of," the American analyst said on the sidelines of the international Energy Markets Forum conference, which was held in Fujairah.
When asked about potential disagreements between the OPEC+ members, the co-chairman of S&P Global Commodity Insights said that the alliance is mindful of the interests of all producers. He believes that the decision to bring back more oil to the market was a joint decision by all OPEC+ countries, which are currently producing less than their actual capacity due to quotas.
"Many of the member countries of OPEC are already producing at their capacity level. So, for them, it's not really an initiative per se, but for all of the member countries that are producing at a quota level that is below their capacity, they all want to bring that oil back, because they have been holding oil off the market, in some cases, since two, since 2022 because of the need to rebalance after the pandemic and covid," he noted.
About gradual production increase
Since the beginning of 2024, the eight leading OPEC+ countries have voluntarily reduced oil production by a combined 2.2 mln bpd. Since April 2025, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UAE, Kazakhstan, Algeria, Oman, and Kuwait have been gradually bringing oil back to the global market. In April, production increased by 138,000 bpd. From May to July, it grew by 411,000 bpd each month. The output increased by 548,000 bpd in August, and 547,000 bpd in September. In October, the countries began abandoning their 1.65 mln bpd oil production cuts, having agreed to increase production by an additional 137,000 bpd.
Earlier, OPEC received updated plans to compensate for excess oil production from Russia, Iraq, the UAE, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, and Oman. These countries will be required to offset excess oil production of 4.679 mln bpd from September 2025 to and including June 2026.
Following the latest meeting on October 5, the eight OPEC+ countries decided to increase oil production in November by 137,000 bpd. Russia and Saudi Arabia will be able to increase production by 41,000 bpd each, Iraq by 18,000 bpd, the UAE by 12,000 bpd, Kuwait by 10,000 bpd, Kazakhstan by 7,000 bpd, Oman by 4,000 bpd, and Algeria by 4,000 bpd. Now Russia's production quota is 9.532 mln bpd, Saudi Arabia - 10.061 mln bpd, Iraq - 4.255 mln bpd, Kuwait - 2.569 mln bpd, UAE - 3.399 mln bpd, Kazakhstan - 1.563 mln bpd, Oman - 808,000 bpd, Algeria - 967,000 bpd.