As a result, while OPEC can point to 117% compliance for those members with production caps, it has to temper that achievement with the fact that after promising cuts of 1.2 million b/d, OPEC’s total output in May was just 690,000 b/d below the October benchmark.
Worse still, Iraq is proving — as expected — a reluctant partner to the deal. Arguably the country had just as much justification as either Libya or Nigeria for an exemption.
In the event, Iraqi production has averaged 4.415 million b/d from January through May, against an allocation of 4.351 million b/d. Iraqi output rose in May by 70,000 b/d to 4.43 million b/d.
It is thus very hard to see where OPEC is heading.I posted that because I had made a mistake in an earlier post. In an earlier post I said that Iraq was exempt from the OPEC agreement to cut production. I was wrong. At the time of the post, I knew I wasn't quite sure, but didn't take the time to confirm. My bad. Fake news.
Anyway, now I've got it. Iraq is part of the OPEC agreement to cut production (wink, wink).