Iran’s Agreement to raise OPEC output ceiling with reluctance
Twelve OPEC member countries agreed to officially fix cartel's output ceiling to 30 mbpd, a 6 million barrel increase over the ceiling they set in 2008. According to official OPEC reports, member countries ignored quotas and increased their oil production level, which totaled 30.47 mbpd by November of 2011. Six months ago, at a meeting of OPEC oil ministers, Iran, Venezuela and Algeria opposed Saudi Arabia's proposal to increase the OPEC's production ceiling by 1.5 mbpd. This created a split among members and the meeting ended inconclusively. In reality, OPEC's production ceiling unofficially reached more than 30 mbpd in November (with Saudi Arabia's sudden increase of its crude oil production to 10 .047 mbpd), excepting condensate, Libya's increase of its production ceiling again by a million bpd, and Iraq's production increase to 2.135 mbpd . Saudi Arabia's oil production hasn't been more than 10 mbpd since 1980. It is likely that