OPEC cuts back its oil production

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cut its production in May by 236,000 barrels of crude oil per day, mainly due to the effect of US sanctions on Iran, according to the monthly report of the cartel on the oil market. .

According to the secondary sources that OPEC manages – which are the only ones that offer data from all the countries of the cartel – the 14 countries that are part of the group of oil exporters pumped a total of 29,876 million barrels a day in the fifth month of the year, compared to 30,111 million in April.

The biggest drop in the level of production corresponded to Iran, which pumped 2.37 million barrels per day, which is equivalent to a decrease of 227,000 barrels. Nigeria reduced its production by 92,000 barrels, to stand at 1,733 million, while Saudi Arabia cut 76,000 barrels a day to reach 9.690 million.

The fall in the production of Iran was used by Iraq, the second largest producer of OPEC, to raise its pumping 94,000 barrels per day, to stand at 4,724 million. In the same way, Angola stood at 1.471 million barrels, 74,000 more than in the previous month.

Venezuela, once again, registered a decrease in its production, reaching 741,000 barrels per day which places the Caribbean country even further away from the data of 2017, when it reached an average of 1.9 million per day.

In this way, the level of Venezuelan crude production is increasingly close to its historical decrease of 620,000 barrels per day. That level was registered in January 2003 as a result of a general strike called to force the president of the Latin American country for that moment, Hugo Chávez, to call early elections. The work stoppages were supported by the workers of Pdvsa, the Venezuelan state oil company, which sank production.

K. Tovar

Source: La Tercera