OPEC acknowledges that it has problems fulfilling its promise to open the oil tap

An oil pump in operation at dawn near the Texan town of Midland, United States. LARRY W. SMITH (EFE)

OPEC has revealed this Tuesday, when publishing its monthly report on the evolution of the oil market, that it faces increasing difficulties to increase its supply of crude, as it has planned and promised to do.

According to the document prepared by the experts of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the extraction of crude oil by its 13 members fell in May to 28.51 million barrels per day (mbd), 176,000 barrels per day less than the pumping of the last month.

These estimates, based on "secondary sources", that is, on independent calculations, confirm what analysts have been warning that most producers have already reached their maximum extraction capacity due to a lack of investment in recent years. .

The situation calls into question the group's credibility, as it has pledged, under strong Western pressure, to continue turning on the taps in an attempt to alleviate the sustained upward pressure on "oil prices" which, exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, drives inflation.

Last month, crude oil production "declined in Libya, Nigeria, Iraq, Gabon and Iran," the Vienna-based organization admitted in its report on Tuesday.

Moderate were the changes in the production of Angola (1.17 mbd; 1,000 bpd less than in April), Algeria (1.01 mbd; -7,000 bpd), Venezuela (717,000 bpd; -2,000 bpd), Congo (270,000 bpd; -7,000 bpd) and Equatorial Guinea (94,000 bpd; -2,000 bpd).

In this way, the increases in Saudi Arabia (by 60,000 barrels per day), the United Arab Emirates (31,000 bpd) and Kuwait (27,000 bpd) could not offset the falls in most of the others.

At the end of March, the OPEC+ alliance (OPEC and allies, including Russia) promised to increase its supplies as of May 1 by 432,000 bpd, so that the organization's 10 partners participating in the agreement (all except Venezuela, Iran and Libya) should rise to 25.59 mbd.