Reuters’ influential ‘secondary sources’ oil survey is out and highlights rising Iranian production. The country isn’t subject to OPEC quotas because of sanctions declines.
The Biden administration — which blocked the Keystone XL pipeline — has instead turned a blind eye to Iranian sanctions and has recently loosened them on Venezuela as well. Those moves were done to lower oil prices.
In any case, Iran’s production is now up to 3.1 million barrels per day, rising 200b bpd and erasing nearly half of the ‘lollypop’ cut from Saudi Arabia. Other OPEC moves — particularly Nigeria — added a net 20k bpd.
OPEC oil production August
The other question about Iran is whether that oil never stopped being produced and it’s only now being counted.
WTI crude oil is up for the sixth day today.