OPEC+ Keeps Oil Output Steady Amid Turmoil Among Members

By Ahmad Ghaddar, Alex Lawler and Olesya Astakhova Reuters January 4, 2026

DUBAI/LONDON, Jan 4 (Reuters) – OPEC+ kept oil output unchanged on Sunday after a quick meeting that avoided discussion of the political crises affecting several of the producer group’s members.

Sunday’s meeting of eight members of OPEC+, which pumps about half the world’s oil, came after oil prices fell more than 18% in 2025 — their steepest yearly drop since 2020 — amid growing oversupply concerns.

Tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE flared last month over a decade-long conflict in Yemen, when a UAE-aligned group seized territory from the Saudi-backed government. The crisis triggered the biggest split in decades between the former close allies.

And on Saturday, the United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and U.S. President Donald Trump said Washington would take control of the country until a transition to a new administration becomes possible, without saying how this would be achieved.

DRIVEN BY POLITICAL UNCERTAINTY

“Right now, oil markets are being driven less by supply–demand fundamentals and more by political uncertainty,” said Jorge Leon, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy and a former OPEC official. “And OPEC+ is clearly prioritizing stability over action.”

The eight OPEC+ members – Saudi Arabia, Russia, the UAE, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Iraq, Algeria and Oman – raised oil output targets by around 2.9 million barrels per day in 2025, equal to almost 3% of world oil demand, to regain market share.

The eight members agreed in November to pause output hikes for January, February and March due to relatively low demand in the northern hemisphere winter. Sunday’s brief online meeting affirmed that policy and did not discuss Venezuela, one OPEC+ delegate said.

The eight countries will next meet on February 1, OPEC+ said.

NUMEROUS CRISES

OPEC has in the past managed to overcome many internal rifts, such as over the Iran–Iraq War, by prioritizing market management over political disputes.

Yet the group is facing other crises, with Russian oil exports falling due to U.S. sanctions over its war in Ukraine, and Iran facing protests and U.S. threats of intervention.

Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves, bigger even than those of OPEC’s leader Saudi Arabia, but its oil production has plummeted due to years of mismanagement and sanctions.

Analysts said it is unlikely to see any meaningful boost to crude output for years, even if U.S. oil majors do invest the billions of dollars in the country that Trump promised.

https://gcaptain.com/opec-keeps-oil-output-steady-amid-turmoil-among-members/

>>24074973

You seem confused about who's who in the zoo around here

Perhaps lurk more?

>>24074997

So you don't know who the wondrous cast of characters here are but too stubborn to sit back and learn

Oh well

>>24075008

Ah, I see

You got busted for mistaking one for another and can't figure out who I was talking about

Greetings newbie

>>24075020

You saw a SP posted and went after "Tranimae" thus demonstrating you know almost nothing about this board.

>>24075050

>he's so anon and incognito I see him on the other platforms he spams his crap on

Once again demonstrating lack of knowledge

I am curious as to what "other platforms" I'm supposed to be on

>>24075069

"he" who?

>>24075080

>You've been hounding since I called out a mimic

Make yourself a note: the one you called "Tranimae" is not the mimic

>>24075091

I recall the times when the shills had quality on the weekends. Now it's like shill training is maybe one hour and then they're on the breads. I figure help the rookie but since they want to be hard headed then I can only hope the AI that replaces them is better at shilling

>>24075103

Times of Israel is just trash, and certainly not the biggest trash

>>24075109

Seethe more rookie

>>24075119

>you are naow also æı

Is that good or bad?

>>24075122

What about when the bird sings after a storm is over?

>>24075118

I'm calling out your rookie mistakes

>>24075185

Too busy chuckling at ya newbie

>>24075201

>You don't mind if I just call you a washed up old guard retard to balance that, would you?

Don't mind at all

>>24075226

No

"washed up old guard retard" could be song lyrics

Missing $8 Billion in Shadow-Fleet Oil Revenue Primes Iran for Revolt

Published Jan 4, 2026 7:06 PM by The Maritime Executive

Early readers of the Maritime Executive magazine’s Nov/Dec edition will have been pre-warned about Iran’s Velayat-e Faqih regime being on the brink of imminent collapse. As protests and street riots continue, it is evident, as predicted, that the prime mover bringing Iranians onto the street are the economic hardships that the general population is now suffering. Iranians have tried to get on with their lives, ignoring what they dislike about the regime. But with inflation, unemployment, rising food prices, shortages of water and electricity, and noxious air quality, ordinary Iranians can no longer bear the deteriorating conditions, and despair then turns to blaming the regime and street protests.

The religious leadership in Iran has always sought to placate the population by providing heavy subsidies for basic commodities. But implementing this policy has become harder and harder in recent months, especially as hardliners refuse to compromise and keep diverting resources to the much-reduced Axis of Resistance and to nuclear and missile programs. There hasn’t been enough in the bank both to pay for Iran’s external posturing and to cover the domestic budget. Without government money feeding into the economy – in the form of subsidies, employment, wage increases, infrastructure spending and investment – then ordinary Iranians suffer deteriorating living standards, particularly in rural areas. Of late, that drop in living standards has become extreme, creating hunger and acute shortages of basic necessities.

Although this trend has been felt by Iranians for some time, matters came to a head politically in recent weeks, when the draft government budget was put before the Iranian majlis – and was rejected by lawmakers because it planned to put even more burdens on the population.

It has now emerged that one of the principal reasons for the revenue shortages necessitating price and tax increases and effective wage cuts has been the shortfall in revenues expected from oil sales.

Revenues generated from oil sales have been under pressure for some time, with sanctions forcing Iran to offer larger and larger discounts to purchasers worried about being listed by the US Treasury and others. China has provided no relief, using Iran’s difficulties not to aid a supposed ally but instead to demand larger and larger discounts. Worse, to sell its oil, Iran has had to rely on a network of trusted third-party shipping brokers and oil traders registered in supposedly friendly countries. But it turns out that figures such as Hussein Shamkani and Babak Zanjani, closely connected to the regime or related to senior regime figures, have been pocketing up to 38 percent of revenues, failing to pass the money on to the government.

The head of the Budget Committee in the Iranian Majlis has told law-makers in recent weeks that of $21 billion in oil sales made between March and November this year, the government only received $13 billion, with the rest purloined by the regime’s “trusted” middlemen. Gholamreza Tajgardoun also told the Majlis that he wasn’t expecting the government to get more than $8 billion from oil sales next year, such being the pressure of sanctions. So matters are scheduled to get worse, and particularly so if, as some analysts believe, ship and cargo seizures become more frequent next year.

For ordinary Iranians, the huge amount of money being stolen by regime insiders has at least one benefit: key regime leaders may be inclined to flee the country with their ill-gotten gains to live a less stressful (and more secular) life in exile, rather than put up resistance to the street protests growing in momentum. If insiders abandon the regime and flee, security force defections will increase and the regime’s internal security defenses will begin to crumble.

For the US Treasury and the shipping community there is a simple message: the missing billions indicate that sanctions are working, and the penalties for avoidance are a sufficiently effective deterrent.

https://maritime-executive.com/editorials/missing-8-billion-in-shadow-fleet-oil-revenue-primes-iran-for-revolt