The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is now OPEC’s third-biggest producer, having surpassed Iran whose output has plunged below 3 million bpd with the U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil. The UAE, an ally of the cartel’s largest producer Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf and within OPEC, is vying for playing a more prominent role as a ‘swing producer’ on the oil market and is boosting its oil production capacity for the longer term, despite the most recent output cuts to which it says it will be strictly adhering. “We need that swing to allow us to contribute to production as needed,” the UAE’s Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei told S&P Global Platts in an interview after OPEC and its non-OPEC partners agreed last week to curtail 2.5 percent of their combined October oil production levels between January and June next year, to rebalance the market spooked by a looming oversupply. […]