OPEC Secretariat receives updated compensation plans from Iraq and Kazakhstan
MOSCOW. Aug 22 (Interfax) - The OPEC Secretariat has received updated compensation plans from Iraq and Kazakhstan for their overproduced volumes of oil in January-July 2024, which totaled around 1.44 million barrels per day for Iraq and 699,000 bpd for Kazakhstan, OPEC said in a press release.
In late July, Iraq, Kazakhstan, and Russia submitted their respective schedules to compensate for permitted overproduction in the first half of the year. However, OPEC's latest report has shown that Iraq and Kazakhstan have failed to adhere to the schedules. Iraq had pledged to cut production by an additional 70,000 bpd in July, while Kazakhstan had committed to cutting 18,000 bpd. Despite Kazakhstan reducing oil output by 34,000 bpd month-on-month to 1.545 million bpd in July, the country still overproduced the promised compensation level by 95,000 bpd.
Iraq even boosted oil output by 57,000 bpd month-on-month to 4.251 million bpd in July, thus exceeding the target by 321,000 bpd.
The new schedule indicates that Iraq should compensate for 90,000 bpd of overproduction and Kazakhstan should compensate for 49,000 bpd of overproduction in August.
Iraq's compensation has increased by 256,000 bpd and Kazakhstan's by 219,000 bpd compared to the previous schedule. Kazakhstan's plan remains unchanged until the end of 2024, while Iraq should raise compensation by an average of 20,000 bpd per month until the end of the year.
Interfax calculations indicate that OPEC+ should produce 35.47 million bpd in August if all the announced plans are fulfilled. Countries participating in OPEC+ produced 35.61 million bpd in July according to the OPEC report.