The 13 members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) pumped an average 32.47 million barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil in September, a Platts survey of OPEC and oil industry officials showed today. This is down 340,000 barrels per day from August and reflects output declines in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Angola.


Excluding Iraq, the 12 members bound by production agreements produced an average 30.18 million b/d, the survey showed. This is 230,000 b/d less than the August output of 30.41 million b/d and exceeds the so-called OPEC-12 output target of 29.673 million b/d by 507,000 b/d.

"At Platts, we are seeing increasing signs of crude and products going unsold on the market," said Platts Global Director of Oil John Kingston. "This means that from an OPEC perspective, the cuts we estimate for September may not be coming fast enough to keep the market in balance. OPEC's upcoming meeting is in November, and the conditions we face today could be radically different by then."

Saudi Arabia accounted for the biggest single fall, 170,000 b/d. Iraqi volumes dropped by 110,000 b/d and Angolan volumes by 100,000 b/d.

Other smaller dips came from Iran, whose output fell by 20,000 b/d to 3.98 million b/d, and from Ecuador, whose production eased by 10,000 b/d to 500,000 b/d.

Reductions totaling 410,000 b/d were partially offset by increases of 50,000 b/d from Libya, whose output recovered to around 1.7 million b/d, and 20,000 b/d from Kuwait.

OPEC, which agreed at its September 9 meeting in Vienna to leave official output limits unchanged but to improve compliance, said Thursday it would convene an extraordinary meeting on November 18 in Vienna to discuss the global financial crisis and its impact on world oil markets. The group had not been scheduled to meet until December 17 in Oran, western Algeria.

Indonesia will leave OPEC at the end of the year.