The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is moving to appoint “one of the top consultants” to visit member states and assess their production capacity in the coming months, Kuwait’s oil minister Tareq Al-Roumi said on Wednesday.
OPEC+ ministers asked OPEC’s headquarters in May to develop a mechanism to assess the maximum sustainable production capacity for each member, which will be used as reference for their 2027 production baselines.
Determining the maximum production capacity of each OPEC or OPEC+ member is contentious because some, such as the United Arab Emirates, have increased their production capacity, pressing the case for higher quotas.
Meanwhile others, such as African members, have seen declines. Angola quit the group in 2024 over a disagreement on its production target.
OPEC did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Al-Roumi did not say whether Kuwait would seek to raise its production quota after expanding its own capacity.
“Let’s see the results of this study first, and then we decide. It’s difficult to answer this question now,” he told reporters in Kuwait.
Kuwait’s crude oil production capacity stands at 3.2 million barrels per day, Al-Roumi told a Kuwaiti newspaper in September.
This marked the highest level in more than a decade, after peaking at 3.3 million bpd in 2010 then falling below 3 million.
(Reporting by Ahmed Hagagy; Editing by Alexander Smith)