The OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) for March 2025 was published recently. The last month reported in most of the OPEC charts that follow is February 2025 and output reported for OPEC nations is crude oil output in thousands of barrels per day (kb/d). In the OPEC charts below the blue line with markers is monthly output and the thin red line is the centered twelve month average (CTMA) output.
Output for December 2024 was revised lower by 110 kb/d and January 2025 output was revised higher by 28 kb/d compared to last month’s report. OPEC 12 output increased by 154 kb/d with the largest increases from Iran and Nigeria (both at 34 kb/d), also UAE (25 kb/d), Iraq (19 kb/d) and Saudi Arabia (18 kb/d) saw increased crude output. Other OPEC members had small increases or decreases of 9 kb/d or less.
The chart above shows output from the Big 4 OPEC producers that are subject to output quotas (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iraq, and Kuwait.) After the pandemic, Big 4 average output peaked in 2022 at a centered 12 month average (CTMA) of 20849 kb/d, crude output has been cut by 2510 kb/d relative to the 2022 CTMA peak to 18339 kb/d in February 2025. The Big 4 may have roughly 2510 kb/d of spare capacity when World demand calls for an increase in output.
Most of the increase in the Other 8 OPEC nations (those OPEC 12 nations that are not part of the Big 4) over the past 3 years has come from Iran and Venezuela (about 439 of the 577 kb/d average annual increase or 76% of the total.) The the remaining 6 nations (all except Libya were subject to quotas) had relatively flat output over the 36 month period covered in the chart above (March 2022 to February 2025.) See chart below for OPEC Other 6 (OPEC 12 minus Big 4 minus Iran minus Venezuela) with an average annual increase of only 138 kb/d over past 3 years.
The increase in Iran and Venezuela’s crude output has been slowing lately so I expect OPEC other 8 output to eventually slow to an annual rate of 200 kb/d or less by 2028.
The very high OECD commercial stocks during the April 2020 to March 2021 period (height of pandemic shut down) may be making it appear that stocks are low, but judging by oil price levels the market believes stocks are adequate. Days of forward cover have remained at about 87 days for commercial stocks plus SPR in the OECD from 2022 to 2024. Oil on water (not included in days of forward cover) has decreased by about 143 million barrels since 2022, this is about 3 days of forward supply in 2024, there are about 31 days of forward cover in tankers in transit in addition to the 87 days of oil on land at the end of 2024.
The estimates for the balance of supply and demand are unchanged from last month.
The chart above attempts to estimate World C+C demand based on both the OPEC MOMR and the EIA STEO. It uses Energy Institute data for refinery throughput from 2020 to 2023 and EIA and OPEC estimates for Total liquids consumption. The trend in non-C+C liquids is combined with the EIA and OPEC forecasts for 2024 to 2026 to find the estimates in the chart above. Most of the forecast for liquids demand increase is from NGL and other liquids rather than C+C over the period from 2023 to 2026. OPEC expects a bigger increase than the EIA, but it is relatively modest at 1232 kb/d over 3 years or roughly 410 kb/d per year.
OPEC estimated a peak refinery crude throughput of 81.68 Mb/d in 2018 and the most recent 4 quarters have an average refinery crude throughput of 81.41 Mb/d so it looks like we may reach a new peak in crude oil demand in 2025, based on the OPEC estimates currently available. Note that the estimates are often revised. Last month’s MOMR had the most recent 4 quarters at 81.45 Mb/d.
OPEC expects fairly slow growth in US tight oil output in 2025 and 2026, most of the increase comes from the Permian Basin, but the growth rate in 2026 falls to less than half of the growth rate in 2024.
The chart above shows clearly the dominance of the Permian Basin and the slow down in the rate of tight oil growth.