OPEC+ agreed on Sunday to maintain its group-wide oil production quotas for 2026 and approved a long-delayed mechanism to assess each member’s maximum production capacity — a step that will shape how output quotas are allocated from 2027 onwards.
A subset of eight OPEC+ producers also reached an agreement in principle to extend their pause on output hikes through the first quarter of 2026, according to delegates familiar with the talks. Those countries have already slowed the return of barrels to the market after releasing roughly 2.9 million barrels per day since April 2025.
The wider group, which accounts for around half of global supply, still has 3.24 million barrels per day of cuts in place — nearly 3% of world demand — and Sunday’s meeting left those curbs unchanged.
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The gathering took place as the U.S. pushes to broker a Russia-Ukraine peace deal, a development that could influence the oil market significantly. A successful deal could eventually bring sanctioned Russian crude back onto the market; failure could tighten supplies further as restrictions on Moscow intensify. Ministers began their discussions through a series of online meetings.
The newly approved capacity-assessment mechanism is intended to resolve long-running disputes among members whose production abilities have diverged. The UAE has invested heavily in expanding capacity and wants higher future quotas, while several African producers, whose capacity has fallen, are resisting cuts. Angola quit the group in 2024 over a similar dispute.
