The group is producing far below the targets it is negotiating about. Once that is true, quota discipline stops being the useful lens and capacity starts being it.
Every month a small group of oil ministers announces a production decision and the announcement is reported as though it moved supply. This ledger sets each country's implied target against what it actually produced in July 2026, and the gap is large enough to change what the announcements mean.
Two definitional matters are settled first, because both are constantly muddled and neither is pedantic. The group that holds the voluntary adjustments is 7 countries, not the full OPEC+ membership and not the eight it is still commonly called. And the target column here is not OPEC's publication — OPEC releases its required-production table as images rather than as text — so it is the International Energy Agency's reconstruction, labelled as one.
The compliance table follows, then the two decisions taken in August and September 2026, then what the Institute thinks a reader should conclude, which is not what the headlines concluded.
Prepared by The Baratelli Institute · publication date September 10, 2026. Every figure below carries its own measurement date, which is set by whoever measured it and is often older than this page.
The 7 are Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman. These are the countries that announced additional voluntary adjustments in April and November 2023, and they are the group whose monthly decisions move the market. They are a subset of OPEC+, which itself is a subset arrangement joining the OPEC member states to a set of non-OPEC producers led by Russia.
The distinction is not academic. A reader who thinks “OPEC+ agreed to raise output” means all twenty-odd participants has misread the size of the decision. A reader who thinks it means the 7 has read it correctly, and can then ask the question this page answers: whether those countries are anywhere near the targets they are adjusting.
These seven are the countries that announced additional voluntary adjustments in April and November 2023, and they are the group whose monthly decisions move the market. The United Arab Emirates was part of this group and is no longer: the May 2026 meeting was reported as the first without it. Both the August and September 2026 press releases name exactly these seven. A reader will still find the group described as 'the OPEC-8' in commentary published after the change, and in current OPEC releases that is wrong by one member.
Two primary sources disagree on what to call this group, and the Institute prints both rather than choosing. The International Energy Agency's Oil Market Report of August 12, 2026 — the source of the production data in the table below — labels the subset “OPEC-8”. OPEC's own press releases of August 2 and September 6, 2026 name exactly 7 countries.
The reconcilable explanation is that the United Arab Emirates was part of the group and is no longer, the May 2026 meeting having been reported as the first without it, and that the IEA's label has not caught up with a membership change. That explanation is plausible and the Institute has not established it from either publisher. So the conflict stands on the page: a reader who finds “OPEC-8” in one document and 7 named countries in another is not looking at an error in either, and is owed the fact that the two disagree rather than a silent choice between them.
This is the standing practice on this reference wherever two dated primary sources conflict. The conflict is the finding. Picking the more convenient figure and moving on is how a reference acquires errors that nobody can later trace.
Production and implied targets are the IEA's, July 2026. The two right-hand computed columns are the Institute's.
| Country | Implied target, mb/d | July 2026 actual, mb/d | Actual less target | Shortfall as a share of target | Sustainable capacity, mb/d | Group |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saudi Arabia | 10.35 | 8.24 | -2.11 | -20.4% | 12.11 | OPEC |
| Iraq | 4.38 | 2.88 | -1.50 | -34.2% | 4.87 | OPEC |
| Kuwait | 2.64 | 1.74 | -0.90 | -34.1% | 2.88 | OPEC |
| Nigeria | 1.50 | 1.44 | -0.06 | -4.0% | 1.42 | OPEC |
| Algeria | 1.00 | 0.97 | -0.03 | -3.0% | 1.00 | OPEC |
| Congo | 0.28 | 0.29 | 0.02 | 7.1% | 0.27 | OPEC |
| Gabon | 0.18 | 0.20 | 0.03 | 16.7% | 0.22 | OPEC |
| Equatorial Guinea | 0.07 | 0.04 | -0.04 | -57.1% | 0.06 | OPEC |
| Russia | 9.82 | 8.76 | -1.06 | -10.8% | 9.40 | Non-OPEC OPEC+ |
| Kazakhstan | 1.61 | 1.55 | -0.05 | -3.1% | 1.80 | Non-OPEC OPEC+ |
| Oman | 0.83 | 0.83 | 0.00 | 0.0% | 0.80 | Non-OPEC OPEC+ |
| Azerbaijan | 0.55 | 0.44 | -0.11 | -20.0% | 0.44 | Non-OPEC OPEC+ |
| Total, countries carrying an implied target | 33.21 | 27.38 | -5.81 | -17.5% | 35.27 | Institute computation, summed from the rows above |
Source: IEA Oil Market Report, published August 12, 2026 (OPEC+ crude oil production table). The shortfall column is actual less target, so a negative figure is production below target. The share column expresses that shortfall against the country's own target, which is the only way to compare a small producer's miss with a large one's. Totals are the Institute's sums across the rows shown and cover only the countries carrying an implied target.
The aggregate is the finding. The countries carrying an implied target produced 27.38 million barrels a day against targets totalling 33.21, a shortfall of 5.81 million barrels a day, or 17.5% of the targets themselves. This is not a compliance story in the usual direction. Overproduction against quota is the historic problem in this group; what the table shows is the opposite and much larger.
Three countries account for most of it. Saudi Arabia produced 8.24 against an implied target of 10.35, a shortfall of 2.11 million barrels a day. Iraq was 1.50 under, and Russia 1.06 under. Those three alone are 4.67 million barrels a day of absent supply, against a total OPEC+ output of 33.00 million.
Read the capacity column alongside. A shortfall against target can mean a country is choosing to withhold barrels or that it cannot produce them, and those are completely different market facts. Where sustainable capacity sits close to actual production, the country has no withheld barrels to release and its target is a number on paper. The capacity figures and the effective spare capacity behind them are on the production ledger, which is the page to read next.
These rows are not zeros in the table above. A zero would read as perfect compliance, and no target exists to comply with.
| Country | June 2026, mb/d | July 2026, mb/d | Sustainable capacity, mb/d | Why there is no target |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iran | 2.30 | 2.63 | 3.80 | OPEC (cut-exempt) |
| Libya | 1.34 | 1.35 | 1.28 | OPEC (cut-exempt) |
| Venezuela | 1.08 | 1.12 | 1.00 | OPEC (cut-exempt) |
| Mexico | 1.38 | 1.37 | 1.50 | Non-OPEC (excluded from compliance) |
Three of these are exempt from the cuts and one is not part of the compliance arrangement at all. Including them in a compliance total would inflate the denominator with countries that were never assigned a share of it, which is a common way the group's discipline gets overstated or understated depending on the argument being made.
| Meeting | What was decided | Source |
|---|---|---|
| August 2, 2026 | The seven countries met virtually and decided to implement a production adjustment of 188 thousand barrels per day from the additional voluntary adjustments announced in April 2023, to be implemented in September 2026. This completes the phased return of the 1.65 million barrel per day voluntary tranche. The group reaffirmed its commitment to fully compensate any volume overproduced since January 2024, monitored by the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee. | OPEC press release, 2 August 2026 |
| September 6, 2026 | The same seven met virtually and decided to maintain the September 2026 required production level for October 2026. No change. The next meeting is set for October 4, 2026. | OPEC press release, 6 September 2026 |
Set the August decision against the table above. The group announced it was returning 188 thousand barrels a day to the market, completing the phased unwind of the 1.65 million barrel a day voluntary tranche. That increase is 3.2% of the shortfall the same countries are already running against their own targets. In September the group announced no change at all.
A decision to add a volume that small, taken by a group already producing several million barrels a day below its targets, is not a supply event. It is a statement of intent, and it is reported as a supply event because a headline needs a number. The Institute's reading is that both announcements are close to irrelevant to the physical balance and quite relevant to what the group wants understood about its posture — which is a different kind of information and should be labelled as one.
OPEC does not publish a per-country target table in page text. The required-production figures accompanying each decision are released as images, which is why this ledger derives compliance from the International Energy Agency's implied targets instead. The implied target is the IEA's reconstruction, not OPEC's publication, and the difference matters: it is an estimate of what each country is supposed to produce, inferred from the announced adjustments, and OPEC has never confirmed it line by line.
Each figure in the target column is the IEA's inference from OPEC's announced adjustments, published August 12, 2026 and describing July 2026 production. OPEC has never confirmed the line-by-line reconstruction, and its own required-production tables are released as images that cannot be read as text. So a compliance figure computed here carries the IEA's publication clock on the numerator and an inference on the denominator.
That is worth knowing before treating any compliance percentage on this page as an audited figure. It is the best available reconstruction from a credible agency, it is labelled as a reconstruction, and it is the reason the Institute leans on the capacity column — which is a physical estimate rather than a policy inference — when the two point in different directions.
Read the announcements for intent, not for supply. The decision that matters is not the one in the headline. In August the group announced it was returning 188 thousand barrels a day to the market and completed the unwind of the voluntary cuts; in September it announced no change at all. Set both against the production ledger and the announcements are close to irrelevant, because the group is collectively producing far below the targets it is arguing about. When a country is 1.5 or 2.1 million barrels a day under its implied target, a coordinated 188 thousand barrel increase is a statement about intent and not about supply. Quota discipline is the wrong lens for this market. Capacity is the right one, and it is on the production ledger.
The monthly meeting has become a communications exercise. When a group is 5.8 million barrels a day below its own targets, a coordinated 188 thousand barrel adjustment cannot change the balance and everyone in the room knows it. The decisions are worth reading for what they signal about how long the group expects the current conditions to last, and they are not worth modelling as supply.
The compensation mechanism is where to look next, and it is not measurable from public data. The group reaffirmed a commitment to compensate fully for any volume overproduced since January 2024, monitored by its own committee. Under current conditions almost nobody is overproducing, so the mechanism has little to do. If and when the shut-in barrels return, it becomes the binding constraint on how fast they can — and the schedules are not published in a form that can be verified from outside.
Prices, the supply and demand balance, refining, the two-clock rule and the plain-English glossary that serves all 13 ledgers.
Back to the hub →LedgerWhere every cent of a $4.48 gallon goes — crude, refining, distribution and tax — with each of the four components on its own clock and three of the four defined differently from how a reader assumes.
Open the ledger →LedgerSeventy-six years of crude prices deflated to constant July 2026 dollars. The 2008 records are still records in real terms and today's are not close.
Open the ledger →LedgerOne central bank, one date, one fixing time. A dollar barrel converted into 29 currencies without mixing thirty sources and thirty clocks.
Open the ledger →LedgerWhat the shape of the curve does to inventory and why it drives storage behaviour rather than describing it — then the full strip: 63 listed WTI months from the exchange's own Daily Bulletin, $96.05 front against $72.60 a year out, $23.45 of backwardation, open interest printed beside every settlement.
Open the ledger →LedgerTwo entirely different questions that share one word. The price a well needs and the price a treasury needs, kept rigorously apart — with the gaps in each named.
Open the ledger →LedgerAll 41 countries the OPEC bulletin itemises, ranked, with share of world total and reserve life computed two ways. Venezuela first at 303.701 billion barrels; the United States ninth with a reserve life of 8.4 years.
Open the ledger →LedgerEvery OPEC+ member's output for July 2026 against its implied target and its sustainable capacity. Effective spare capacity is 1.09 mb/d, or 1.07% of a 101.5 mb/d market.
Open the ledger →Ledger588 rigs turning in the United States, 449 drilling for oil, 1,907 worldwide. A forty per cent move in price has produced a 1.4 per cent move in the American count.
Open the ledger →LedgerCapacity measured on two clocks five months apart, crack spreads computed from same-week legs in both units the market quotes, and the one undated figure on this reference, labelled as such.
Open the ledger →LedgerDiesel at $5.967 a gallon, a nominal record and not a real one. Why distillate is tighter than gasoline, and why distillate fuel oil is not diesel.
Open the ledger →LedgerCommercial crude one per cent above its five-year average in the same week the Strategic Petroleum Reserve reads 39.3% of capacity and its lowest since November 1982. The two facts are causally linked.
Open the ledger →LedgerEight passages, six years of flows each, and bypass capacity that covers under a quarter of Hormuz. Plus what the industry itself expected in April, measured, and how wrong it was.
Open the ledger →Provenance. Reserve figures are transcribed from the OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin; production, spare-capacity, stock and refining figures from the International Energy Agency Oil Market Report; United States production, refinery capacity and inventory figures from the Energy Information Administration; rig counts from the Baker Hughes North America and Worldwide rig counts; benchmark prices from published daily quotes. Each row names its source and the date the figure was measured. Where a figure was not published, or where a published series does not itemise a country, the cell reads n/d rather than carrying a fabricated estimate. Derived quantities — reserve life, shares of world total, capacity utilisation, spare capacity as a share of supply — are computed from the figures shown and are not separately sourced; they inherit the measurement dates of their inputs, and where the two inputs run on different clocks the page says so. The Baratelli Institute is a publisher operating under the Lowe v. SEC publisher exception. Nothing here is investment advice, a recommendation, or an offer to buy or sell any security or commodity. Figures change; verify against the primary source before relying on any of them.