How the US is exploiting the world’s oil cartel

For nearly 18 months, the OPEC+ cartel has been cutting its production to prop up oil prices. It’s worked to a degree, with external events helping, but it’s also opened the door to allowing the US to become by far the world’s largest oil producer.

After a virtual meeting on Wednesday, the joint monitoring committee of OPEC+ announced that the 1.3 million barrels a day of cuts agreed to last June and the additional 900,000 barrels a day of cuts announced late last year would remain in place until July.

Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman. The kingdom has drastically reduced oil production, opening the door for the US. Credit: AP

Taking into account earlier rounds of reduced production that began in late 2022, more than 5 million barrels a day – almost 5 per cent of global supply – have been withdrawn from the market, or at least they would have been, had a number of OPEC+ members adhered to their quotas.

Those members who have been producing above their quotas – Iraq, Kazakhstan and the United Arab Emirates among them – will now have until April 30 to submit compensation plans. Iraq and Kazakhstan, at least, have pledged to conform to their quotas and compensate for their over-production by producing at rates below the levels allowed by those quotas.

With Iraq producing about 270,00 barrels a day above its quota in the first quarter, the UAE about 218,000 barrels a day above its target, and Kazakhstan about 92,000 barrels a day, that implies there could be further and significant reductions in output later this year – if the quota-dodgers honour their pledges.

The attempt to use reduced supply to put a relatively high floor under oil prices has had mixed success.

The mid-year cuts last year did drive the price up from below $US75 a barrel to almost $US100 a barrel by late September, but it was back below $US75 a barrel by early December, which prompted the last round of voluntary cuts.

It was still below $US80 a barrel in early February when Ukraine launched a major campaign targeting Russia’s refineries with mass drone attacks. Production at at least nine refineries appears to have been disrupted, impacting the processing of about a million barrels a day of crude.

With the war in Ukraine and its partly effective sanctions on Russian oil exports continuing, along with the conflict in the Middle East that has disrupted shipping via the critical Red Sea route, the production cuts have tightened supply and pushed oil prices up again to just under $US90 a barrel.

There are plenty of predictions that they will push through $US100 a barrel later this year, amid encouraging signs that China’s economy is strengthening, which, with the US economy still performing solidly, ought to put a floor under demand.

The US is exporting oil at record levels.Credit: Eric Gay

Stronger demand could also, however, push petrol and diesel prices up, which might slow the rates of decline in inflation that have been occurring within the major economies and, by keeping interest rates higher than they might otherwise have been, adversely impact global growth.

The impact of the OPEC+ cuts – borne most heavily by Saudi Arabia, which has cut its output by about 2 million barrels a day, and by Russia, which has been producing about 1 million barrels a day less than it did before the invasion of Ukraine – would have been far more marked if not for a flood of oil exports from the US.

Despite the White House’s focus and massive spending on efforts to decarbonise the US economy, the US is exporting oil at record levels. Last year crude oil and condensate production in the US averaged 12.9 million barrels a day. It’s now producing more than 13 million barrels a day.

It will be a delicate exercise when OPEC+ does decide that it can start to wind back the quotas.

Where Donald Trump says his policy for lowering inflation and restoring US energy independence if he regains office will be to “drill, baby, drill”, Biden has already achieved the latter.

For the past two years, for the first time, the US has been a net energy exporter, filling the vacuum left by the OPEC+ production cuts and sanctions on Russian export volumes. Its production compares with the Saudis’ production last year of about 9 million barrels a day and capacity of about 12 million barrels a day.

The share prices of the big US oil and gas companies have soared during the Biden administration. They slumped, heavily, during a Trump presidency that included the worst of the pandemic’s economic impacts.

The success of the US producers in boosting production at a time of OPEC+ production cuts has reduced the market share of the 12 core OPEC members down to only about 25 per cent of the global market. Five years ago, they held about a third of the market.

The wider OPEC+ grouping’s supply now accounts for roughly half the global market, the lowest level since OPEC expanded by adding associates in 2016. The US now has a market share of around 20 per cent.

OPEC+, by restricting its own supply – at a considerable opportunity cost to its own members, particularly the Saudis, who have about 3 million barrels a day of latent capacity – has therefore given a very lucrative free kick to its competitors.

The current production curbs are scheduled to end on June 30, at which point OPEC+, but more particularly the Saudis, will have a difficult decision to make.

Do they continue with the cuts and allow their competitors (and even some OPEC+ members) to benefit from their sacrifices, or do they begin progressively relaxing the quotas?

The Saudis, with their ambitious and ultra-expensive economic diversification program to finance, would be frustrated that the US and other producers (including fierce regional rival Iran) and even some cartel members have been free-riding on its willingness to shoulder the bulk of the burden of keeping supply in balance with demand.

It needs, however, high oil prices – most analysts think about $US80 a barrel – to balance its budget, and would be conscious that increasing supply could quickly push prices back below $US75 a barrel or even lower.

It will be a delicate exercise when OPEC+ does decide that it can start to wind back the quotas. It will require strengthening global economic conditions, increased demand for oil, and a more muted response from non-OPEC+ producers – particularly the US – if increases in its output aren’t to blow up the oil price.

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