OPEC+ meets on Sunday with the strait shut and Brent still below its own war peak
Seven producers review October quotas a day after Brent settled near $95. The market has already de-escalated from a 52-week high of $126.41 while Hormuz remains effectively closed.
Trading Economics recorded Brent at $95.23 a barrel on 4 September, down 0.31 percent on the day, up 19.86 percent over the month and 45.39 percent year on year; WTI closed at $91.20 on the same terms. Its note the previous day had Brent above $96 at six-week highs as investors watched the strikes and their effect on supply through Hormuz. Investing.com, quoting a different instrument, puts the 52-week range for Brent futures at $58.72 to $126.41 — meaning the market is trading some $30 below its own wartime peak with the strait still shut. Trading Economics attributes the softening to signs that crude is still reaching the market: Iraq’s exports rose in August and are expected to increase further in September. Readers should note that price publishers disagree by several dollars on any given day because they quote different contracts and timestamps.
The seven producers meeting on Sunday — Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman — have already finished the job they set themselves. World Oil reported on 2 August that OPEC+ approved a 188,000 bpd increase for September, completing the restoration of roughly 3.5 million bpd of cuts announced in 2023, while signalling quotas would likely hold steady through year-end; Energy Connects put the fully restored voluntary tranche at 1.65 million bpd. CNBC noted that although sources briefed a fourth-quarter pause before the August meeting, the communiqué said nothing about the last three months of 2026. “OPEC+ has finished unwinding its voluntary cuts,” Jorge Leon of Rystad Energy told CNBC on 2 August. “The next challenge is managing the surplus that could emerge as export flows normalize.” The National reported resistance inside the group, including from Iraq, which wants higher quotas.
Assessment: The interesting number is not the price but the distance from the peak. A market that can absorb a closed Hormuz, a naval blockade and a tanker-strike doctrine at $95 is telling producers that the war premium has a ceiling and that it is falling. That makes Sunday’s decision political rather than technical: holding output flat with Brent up 45 percent year on year is a choice by Riyadh about how much of a rival’s absent barrels it wants to replace, and how visibly. Watch the language on the capacity audit — the assessment of each member’s production ceiling is the fight that sets 2027 baselines, and it is proceeding under cover of the shooting.