Finland Times

 

OPEC pumped 32.33 million barrels of crude oil per day in January, an increase of 0.131 million barrels compared to last December, the cartel's latest report showed on Wednesday.

 

OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, continued to maintain its high level oil output in the past months despite the plunge of the world crude price.

 

"Crude oil output increased mostly from Nigeria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Iran," the report said. Tehran said it could significantly increase its oil production shortly after the sanction relief.

 

There seemed to be no sign the OPEC members are cutting there oil output to rebalance the market. In the past several meetings of OPEC member states in Vienna, the cartel refused to reduce its crude production to defend its market share, and OPEC has to keep pumping over 30 million barrels of crude oil per day.

 

Despite the low oil price, the other big oil pumpers, like the U.S. and Russia, also maintained their high-level oil output.

 

The non-OPEC crude pumpers recorded higher oil output in the year 2015 compared to the previous year. However, the cartel still expects a decrease of the non-OPEC oil output in the year 2016.