OPEC Plus Held November Oil Output Steady and the Barrels It Already Approved Are Stuck

Donald Trump told the Davos crowd in January 2025 he wanted Saudi Arabia and OPEC to bring oil prices down.

OPEC Plus answered with its first production increase since 2022 and kept raising targets into 2026.

But when the group met to set November output, the oil it had already approved still had nowhere to go.

Seven OPEC Plus Producers Kept November Targets Right Where They Were

On October 4, the seven core OPEC+ members agreed in a brief online meeting to leave their November production targets unchanged.

That's Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Kazakhstan, and Oman.

This is the second month in a row the group has held steady.

It comes right after OPEC+ finished rolling back 1.65 million barrels a day of voluntary cuts in September.

The group has been raising its targets for much of 2026.

The trouble is that most of those increases never made it past the paperwork.

UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo boiled the situation down plainly: "the oil market remains tight."

Iran Is the Cork in the Bottle

Roughly a fifth of the world's crude and liquefied natural gas normally moves through the Strait of Hormuz.

Ever since the shooting with Iran started on February 28, traffic through that waterway has been choked.

Two more tankers were struck near the strait in early October.

Gulf producers have been exporting just 60 to 80 percent of their normal volumes in recent months.

The seven core members pumped about 25 million barrels a day in August, roughly 5 million below their pre-war level.

That was still a 630,000-barrel jump from July, proof the producers move more oil whenever they can.

Brent crude was holding above $100 a barrel when they met, against roughly $73 before the war.

Raising targets again would have added barrels on paper without moving many in the real world.

As long as Tehran holds the strait hostage, the quotas aren't what's keeping oil off the market.

The war has also stalled the capacity review OPEC+ needs to divide up future quotas, so major output changes are unlikely before 2027.

Tehran's price for a deal is steep: an end to the fighting, a lifted naval blockade, unfrozen assets, and sanctions relief.

The seven meet again on November 1.

Trump's Davos Demand Got OPEC Plus Pumping Before the War

None of this started in February.

At Davos in January 2025, Trump said, "I'm also going to ask Saudi Arabia and OPEC to bring down the cost of oil."

Six weeks later, with Trump still pressing, OPEC+ confirmed an April increase of 138,000 barrels a day.

It was the group's first production increase since 2022, and the hikes kept coming from there.

From the start, OPEC+ said the increases "may be paused or reversed subject to market conditions."

A war that bottles up a fifth of the world's oil is exactly that kind of condition.

Compare that to how OPEC+ treated Joe Biden.

Biden fist-bumped the Saudi crown prince in Jeddah in July 2022 and begged for more oil.

He had already been draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to paper over his war on American drilling.

Less than three months later, OPEC+ slashed output by 2 million barrels a day, one month before the midterms.

Rep. Steve Scalise put it bluntly: "Biden destroyed America's oil/gas industry and made us dependent on OPEC again."

One president got a production cut.

The other got the taps opened.

American Oilfields Are Carrying the Load Until Hormuz Reopens

While Gulf barrels sit trapped, American producers are filling the gap.

The Energy Information Administration expects U.S. crude production to hit a record 13.8 million barrels a day in 2026, topping the 2025 record.

Four big new offshore projects – Shenandoah, Ballymore, Whale, and Salamanca – pushed Gulf of America output up 10 percent in the first half of 2026.

Out in West Texas, prices sit comfortably above what it costs to drill, and the Permian Basin is expected to average 6.8 million barrels a day in 2026.

The G7 is also releasing 100 million barrels from emergency reserves to blunt the war shock.

Trump has said the price spike ends when the Iran war does.

"As soon as it does end, oil prices will come tumbling down," he said.

The math backs him up.

OPEC+ has the barrels approved.

America is pumping at record levels.

The only thing standing between those barrels and the world market is Iran.

Sources:

• Reuters, "OPEC+ Agrees to Keep November Oil Output Targets Steady," EnergyNow, October 4, 2026.
• The National, "Opec+ Keeps Oil Output Targets Unchanged for November," The National, October 4, 2026.
• Fox News, "Trump Suggests US-Iran War to End 'Very Soon' and 'Oil Prices Will Come Tumbling Down,'" Fox News, October 3, 2026.
• World Economic Forum, "Davos 2025: Special Address by Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America," World Economic Forum, January 23, 2025.
• Reuters, "OPEC+ to Proceed With Planned April Oil Output Hike," Arab News, March 3, 2025.
• Tim Meads, "Fist Bump Fail: Biden Scrambling Before Midterms After OPEC+ Cuts Oil," The Daily Wire, October 5, 2022.
• U.S. Energy Information Administration, "United States on Track for Record Crude Oil Production in 2026," U.S. Energy Information Administration, September 10, 2026.