OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report, October 2025
The OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) for October 2025 was published recently. The last month reported in most of the OPEC charts that follow is September 2025 and output reported for OPEC nations is crude oil output in thousands of barrels per day (kb/d). In the OPEC charts below the blue line with markers is monthly output and the thin red line is the centered twelve month average (CTMA) output.
OPEC 12 output for July 2025 was revised higher by 25 kb/d and August 2025 output was revised lower by 32 kb/d compared to last month’s report. OPEC 12 output increased by 524 kb/d with the largest increases from Saudi Arabia (248 kb/d), UAE (98 kb/d), Iraq (65 kb/d) and Iran (44 kb/d). Nigeria (-21 kb/d) saw decreased crude output. All other OPEC members had small increases of 27 kb/d or less (net increase for the 7 other OPEC members was 90 kb/d).
The chart above shows output from the Big 4 OPEC producers that are subject to output quotas (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iraq, and Kuwait.) After the pandemic, Big 4 average output peaked in 2022 at a centered 12 month average (CTMA) of 20849 kb/d, crude output has been cut by 954 kb/d relative to the 2022 CTMA peak to 19895 kb/d in September 2025. The Big 4 may have about 954 kb/d of spare capacity when World demand calls for an increase in output. Since April 2025 the OPEC Big 4 have increased output from 18346 kb/d to 19895 kb/d, an increase of 1549 kb/d in just 5 months (an average monthly increase of 310 kb/d.) If the average rate of increase of the past 5 months continues for another 3 months, OPEC spare capacity will be reduced to 24 kb/d by the end of 2025.
The chart above shows the most recent 36 month average annual increase of 134 kb/d for the Other 6 OPEC group which excludes the Big 4 and Iran and Venezuela. Iran and Venezuela have seen their output rise over the past 3 years at an annual rate of 386 kb/d which I believe will fall to zero in the near future. The chart below shows the long term trend for the OPEC Other 6 which is roughly flat (a small average annual rate of decrease of 4 kb/d over the past 11 years.) I expect the Other 6 will see their output return to this flat trend in the next few years.
Refinery crude throughput is a measure of World demand for C+C (though imperfect because some crude is burned directly in power plants in the middle east.) OPEC data shows the peak was 81.68 Mb/d in 2018. For the most recent 4 quarters the average World refinery throughput was 81.34 Mb/d, the previous 4 quarters had average refinery throughput at 81.00 Mb/d and 2024 had refinery throughput at 81.04 Mb/d. If the recent rate of increase continues (about a 450 kb/d annual rate of increase) we may see a new peak in annual average World refinery throughput in 2026.
Preliminary August 2025 data show that OECD commercial inventories fell slightly by 0.5 Mb, m-o-m, to stand at 2,793 Mb. At this level, OECD commercial stocks were 45.7 Mb less than the same time last year, 92.2 Mb lower than the latest five-year average, and 192.0 Mb below the 2015–2019 average.
OPEC has again reduced its estimate of US tight oil output in 2025 and 2026 compared to last month’s report by 20 kb/d for both years.
OPEC’s estimate for US C+C output is a bit more pessimistic than the EIA’s recent STEO where 13.53 Mb/d is forecast for annual US C+C in 2025 and 13.51 Mb/d in 2026, 210 kb/d less in 2025 for the OPEC estimate compared to the STEO and 300 kb/d less in 2026 for the OPEC estimate compared to the EIA forecast. Both agencies predict a near term peak in 2025 for US C+C. Also note that most of the increase in US liquids output in 2025 comes from increases in NGL output and all of the 2026 liquids increase in 2026 is due to higher NGL output according to OPEC estimates.
Longer term the AEO 2025 reference case has US C+C output reaching a peak of 14 Mb/d in 2027, but that case also forecasts higher oil prices with average wellhead oil prices at about $84-86/b in 2024$ from 2024 to 2026, rising to $92/b in 2027. The low oil price scenario with wellhead prices around $75-76/b in 2024$ in 2026-2027 and at $82/b in 2025 has the US C+C peak in 2024. So for the EIA at today’s wellhead oil prices the long term outlook is for lower US C+C output.
The chart above compares the short term outlook for Global Liquids demand growth from OPEC, EIA, and IEA. OPEC has the highest estimates, IEA the lowest and the EIA is in between fairly close to the average of the three. There is a fair amount of uncertainty considering the short term nature of the forecast with OPEC’s estimate being roughly 2 times that of the IEA.
The EIA’s International Energy Outlook(IEO) from 2023 has long term global liquids consumption increasing by about 18 Mb/d from 2026 to 2050.
For Global C+C output the IEO 2023 has 2050 at 92.7 Mb/d, actual 2024 World C+C output was 82 Mb/d, so only about 60% of the increase in global liquids is expected to be from C+C with the balance being mostly NGL and biofuel. The IEO 2023 reference case reaches 85 Mb/d for World C+C output in 2040, but note that this scenario from 2023 assumed that oil prices would be high in 2024$ with Brent prices ranging from a minimum of $94.73/b in 2025 and rising gradually to $103/b in 2024$ by 2040 and rising to $109/b in 2024$ by 2050.