Big Headline, Small Story -- But Deep Inside The Story, What We've Been Saying For Quite Some Time -- October 5, 2021

OPEC+ raises November oil production quote to 39.7 million bpd. That was the headline. Link to Tsvetana Paraskova. Some details:

• will stick to plan
• will ease collective cuts by 400,000 bpd
• article discusses Russia's confusing situation: official Russian data doesn't discriminate betweeen crude oil and condensate production, but condensates are excluded from Russia's OPEC+ quote

Now look at this:

Bloomberg estimates put Russian crude and condensate production in September at 10.7 million bpd. If condensate production was around 880,000 bpd, this would put Russian crude oil output at 9.83 million bpd, which would be 130,000 bpd above quota, as per Bloomberg calculations.

Analysts say that Russia may have reached its capacity to produce oil, while several OPEC members of the pact such as Angola, and at times, Nigeria, have struggled to pump to quotas over the past few months.

This is one of the key reasons for the over-100-percent compliance with the total cuts.

And then this: 

The OPEC+ group of producers raised their compliance with the production cuts to 116 percent in August, up from 109 percent compliance in July, sources from the alliance told Reuters in September. Despite the higher production, OPEC was actually pumping at some 10 percent below its overall quota for the 10 members bound by the OPEC+ pact in August, due to outages and technical difficulties in countries such as Nigeria and Angola, Bloomberg noted last month.

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Aramco Mega Deal
Saudi Foreign Investment to Record in 2Q21

Link to Charles Kennedy.

Saudi's foreign direct investment (FDI)

• generally runs around $1 billion per quarter
• but 2Q21: a staggering $14 billion
• key investment: $12 billion that involved Saudi Aramco: pipeline network in the desert