Eight members of the OPEC Plus oil producers group said on Sunday that they would raise their output of crude by a modest 137,000 barrels day in November.
The group’s move, which was led by Saudi Arabia, is the latest in a series of increases beginning earlier this year. The countries announced the same size increase for October.
An addition of 137,000 barrels a day is tiny in the context of global oil supplies of more than 100 million barrels a day. Analysts say these small boosts appear to be intended to keep lifting production ceilings while also signaling caution because of worries that there could be an oversupply in coming months that might depress prices.
In a news release, the countries said they were acting on the basis of “healthy oil market fundamentals” and a “steady global economic outlook.”
The group, which includes Russia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman in addition to Saudi Arabia, has already relaxed one program of cuts totaling about 2.2 million barrels a day and has now turned to undoing another agreement, reached in 2023, to reduce output by 1.65 million barrel a day.
These moves initially surprised the energy industry. “I would not have bet a year ago that the OPEC countries” would have been able to unwind their cuts, Patrick Pouyanné, chief executive of TotalEnergies, the French energy giant, recently told financial analysts in New York.
Analysts, though, say that the Saudis have decided it is to their advantage to move away from trying to manage markets through production cuts for a number of reasons, including that the lion’s share of increases has gone to them.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s chief policymaker, also appears to be giving priority to good relations with the Trump administration, which wants relatively low oil prices for American consumers.
“Of course, they understand that the U.S. is the main and most important strategic ally,” said Bachar El-Halabi, senior analyst in Dubai for Argus Media, a commodities research firm.
President Trump is far more inclined than his predecessor, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., to work closely with the Saudis.
The latest example is the announcement on Monday by the video game developer Electronic Arts that it had to agreed to a $55 billion takeover by an investor group, including Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and a firm managed by Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
The Saudis are also weary of producing well below their capacity to bolster oil prices, while other countries inside and outside OPEC Plus take advantage and increase production.
There has been a “re-evaluation of the cost of supporting other producers’ output gains,” said Helima Croft, head of commodities research at RBC Capital Markets, an investment bank.
The easing of the production cuts has also benefited the Saudis by revealing that the group of eight has far less oil to add than the roughly five million barrels a day that markets had once feared. “We had this number just hanging over the market,” Ms. Croft said, and it was “fiction.”
The actual amount of oil reaching the market has been considerably less than the announced increases.
As of September, OPEC Plus had added 1.5 million barrels a day since the first quarter, well below its target of 2.5 million barrels a day, according to the International Energy Agency.
Only the Saudis and possibly the United Arab Emirates now appear capable of adding substantial volumes of oil to the market, and so the revenues from further lifting production ceilings will largely flow to them.
When the production cuts were initially announced, traders worried that the added oil would create a glut, but such worries have eased as the market has so far absorbed the new supplies smoothly.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, was trading at about $64.50 a barrel on Friday, is down about 2 percent over the last three months.
This market performance may mean that demand for oil is stronger than some analysts believe.
The realization that there is little oil to spare in a tumultuous world is helping to prop up prices, analysts say. And the Saudis are “in the driver’s seat right now,” Mr. El-Halabi said.
Stanley Reed reports on energy, the environment and the Middle East for The Times from London. He has been a journalist for more than four decades.
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