Opec+ keeps oil output steady despite global woes

Opec+ agreed to maintain steady oil output ‍at its ‌meeting on Sunday, the group said in a statement, despite global woes and the US capture of the president of smaller producer Venezuela.

Sunday's meeting of eight members of Opec+, which pumps about half the world's oil, comes after oil ‍prices fell more than 18% in 2025 - their steepest yearly drop since 2020 - amid growing oversupply ‍concerns.

The eight - Saudi Arabia, Russia, the UAE, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Iraq, Algeria and Oman - raised oil output targets by around 2.9 million barrels per day from April to December 2025, equal to almost 3% of world oil demand.

They agreed in November to pause output hikes for January, February and March. Sunday's brief online meeting did not discuss Venezuela, one Opec+ ‌delegate said.

The eight countries will meet next on Feb. 1, the statement said.

Opec has in the past managed to overcome serious internal rifts, such ​as over ‍the Iran-Iraq War, by prioritising market management over political disputes. Yet the group is ‌facing numerous crises, with Russian oil exports pressured due to US sanctions over its war in Ukraine, and Iran facing protests and US threats of intervention.

On Saturday, the United States captured Venezuelan ​President Nicolas Maduro and ‌US President Donald Trump said Washington would take control of the country until a transition to a new administration becomes possible, without saying how this would be achieved.

Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves, bigger even than those of Opec's leader Saudi Arabia, but its ‌oil production has plummeted due to years of mismanagement and sanctions. Analysts said it is unlikely to see any meaningful boost to crude output for years, even if US oil majors do invest the billions of dollars in the country ‍that Trump promised.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump said on Saturday he would allow American oil companies to go into Venezuela to tap its massive crude reserves after a US military operation seized its leader Nicolas Maduro.

The US military carried out a series of air strikes on Venezuela's capital Caracas early on Saturday. Maduro and his wife were captured and flown to New York City, where they face drug-trafficking and weapons charges.

"We're going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country," Trump told a news conference in Florida.

Trump also said that "the embargo on all Venezuelan oil remains in full effect." Washington imposed economic sanctions on Venezuela in 2017, followed by oil sanctions two years later.

Venezuela produces just under a million barrels of crude a day, according to the organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and sells most of it on the black market at steep discounts.

Trump claims Caracas is using oil money to finance "drug terrorism, human trafficking, murder and kidnapping." At the start of his second term in 2025, he ended licenses that had allowed multinational oil and gas companies to operate in Venezuela despite the sanctions, with US company Chevron the only one to receive an exemption.

Chevron operates four oil fields in Venezuela in partnership with state-owned PDVSA and its affiliates.

Washington has also imposed a total blockade on sanctioned tankers going to and from Venezuela.

Venezuelan territory contains about 17 per cent of the world's oil reserves, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) in 2023, but is far from being a leading producer after years of mismanagement and corruption.

Venezuelan oil is of lower quality and is mostly processed into diesel or byproducts such as asphalt, rather than gasoline. The United States has refineries around the Gulf of Mexico specifically designed to handle it.

"The United States is doing just fine without Venezuelan oil," Stephen Schork, an analyst at consulting firm the Schork Group, told AFP last month, pointing to political reasons instead.

Agencies