OPEC+ countries’ seaborne exports for October and the first half of November have seen a clear increase. Amid other factors, this has helped pause the oil price rally over the last couple of weeks. But the flip side of OPEC+ production increases is always a mirroring decline in spare capacity. A look at the details suggests that there is much less spare capacity in the market than most players think. Over recent months we have written frequently about the strong divergence between crude export paths of individual OPEC+ countries. The group as a whole has actually only raised exports significantly as of October, making a 1.2mbd step higher to 25.9mbd. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates increased their external supplies three months earlier as of July, and are now up by more than 2mbd from the average H1 2021 level. But their supply additions were eaten up by […]