OPEC+ set to stick to current policy of 432K BPD output hikes each month at 2 June meeting - Reuters

OPEC+ is set to stick to its current policy of raising output by 432K barrels per day (BPD) each month when it meeting again on 2 June, six sources told Reuters on Thursday. "Why change what works perfectly?" one of the sources said to Reuters, adding that "we will announce that we are going to increase our production by 432,000 bpd even if we are no longer able to do so". 

Western nations have been putting pressure on Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the only OPEC+ nations with any real spare capacity to actually significantly ramp up oil output in the near term, to go beyond the current steady increases to output. That's partially because many of the smaller OPEC nations have been struggling to keep up with recent hikes to their output quotas, meaning that OPEC+ hasn't actually been lifting output by 432K BPD in recent quarters. 

Sanctions on Russia since its invasion of Ukraine have substantially worsened the OPEC+ output picture. OPEC+ undershot its output quota by 2.6M BPD in April, a recent Reuters report showed, with Russia accounting for half of that miss. Things are expected to have gotten worse this month.