OPEC+ will consider the option to increase crude oil supply when key members meet Sunday after the US and Israel launched an attack on Iran, according to two delegates.
The group led by Saudi Arabia and Russia was expected to resume modest hikes in April after a three-month supply freeze in an ongoing strategy to reclaim market share, several delegates said earlier this week.
Their base-case was to raise by 137,000 barrels a day, in line with increments during the fourth quarter, three people said. A key factor in Sunday’s decision will be whether the shock US-Israel assault on the Islamic Republic results in a closure of the Persian Gulf’s critical Strait of Hormuz, said another. The delegates asked not to be identified as the deliberations are private.
The Iran attacks, and Tehran’s retaliation against American military bases in the region, mark the culmination of a geopolitical crisis that has pushed up crude prices this year despite widespread expectations of a surplus. Futures rose to a seven-month high of $73 a barrel in London on Friday, having climbed 19% this year amid an array of output disruptions, sanctions and Chinese stockpiling.
Saudi Arabia, along with some other producers, already accelerated oil exports in recent days as America’s deployment of military assets to the Middle East fuelled tensions in the region. Last year, Riyadh temporarily ramped up supplies during a previous US strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.
“Whatever headline increase OPEC+ goes with, they would potentially have to draw from storage to back words with barrels and meet that number,” said Helima Croft, head of commodity-markets strategy at RBC Capital Markets LLC. “Spare capacity is exceedingly limited and sitting only in Saudi Arabia.”
On Saturday, US President Donald Trump urged Iranians to overthrow their government as the US undertakes “major combat operations” against the Islamic Republic and Israel launches “preventive” airstrikes on targets in the country. Tehran has claimed retaliatory attacks on US military bases in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait.
The bombardment comes two days after delegations from Iran and the US met in Switzerland for a third round of negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear activities. While Iran sounded upbeat about the trajectory of the talks, Trump said on Friday he wasn’t happy with how they were unfolding.
The vulnerability of regional energy flows became immediately clear again on Saturday, with the Houthis—a Yemen-based militia with ties to Tehran—pledging to resume attacks on shipping in the Red Sea corridor.
Further east, traders were also closely monitoring the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, a focal point at times of regional unrest because a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil—and a chunk of gas—travels through the waterway every day.
Supply Cushion
Saudi Arabia holds the bulk of the world’s spare oil production capacity, able to muster an additional 1.8 million barrels a day, according to the International Energy Agency. The United Arab Emirates has a contingency plan to deploy at least 1 million barrels a day, a delegate said.
Among targeted sites in Iran, the country’s semi-official Mehr news agency reported an explosion at Kharg Island, where there’s a key oil export terminal—though it gave no details. Oil facilities weren’t targeted during the attacks on Iran in June, and Trump has pledged to bring fuel prices down.
Under the guidance of Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (OPEC+) have often adopted a cautious policy in the face of geopolitical events, opting to see whether they have a material impact before acting.
The kingdom has suffered the fallout from regional conflicts before, most notably during a 2019 attack on its Abqaiq processing facility—claimed by Iran’s Houthi allies—that briefly crippled its output.
OPEC+ didn’t collectively adjust course after last summer’s attacks on Iran, or when the US seized Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro at the start of this year.
Nonetheless, oil markets have confounded expectations so far in 2026.
“The market was priced on the basis of a ‘glut’ that is beginning to appear to be mostly fiction,” said Jeff Currie, chief strategy officer of energy pathways at Carlyle Group Inc. “There is no room for error, which means a lot of room to rally.”
While global supplies are exceeding demand, a range of disruptions from North America to Kazakhstan and Russia has tempered the excess. Much of the overhang consists of either sanctioned barrels from Russia or Iran—which are unavailable to the general market—or else is being scooped up by China for strategic reserves.
Opening the taps a little more could fit into OPEC+’s long-term objectives. For almost a year, the Saudis and other key members have been engaged in an apparent push to reclaim market share ceded to rivals such as US shale drillers. They have been reviving production halted since 2023, despite warnings that world markets were comfortably supplied.
