OPEC output reaches 8-year high

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries pumped the most oil in almost eight years last month, a sign that producers are still trying to carve out a bigger piece of the global market, according to a new analysis.

S&P Global Platts, a research firm that tracks the energy industry, said in a report Monday that OPEC’s daily oil production rose by 300,000 barrels to 32.73 million in June. The cartel, comprising about a dozen oil-producing nations, is set to release its own production data Tuesday.

If the estimates by Platts are correct, it’s the most OPEC has produced since August 2008, the month before the collapse of the Wall Street bank Lehman Brothers sparked the global financial crisis and a deep recession. The rise in output “sends a strong message over its unwavering market share strategy,” Eklavya Gupte, senior editor for S&P Global Platts, said in a written statement.

OPEC’s de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, has since late 2014 refused calls to curb output levels

to support oil prices, a role the cartel has taken in previous downturns. Instead, the kingdom has kept its taps open in an effort to boost its market share, a tactic that has used the market to weed out higher-cost producers, such as U.S. shale drillers, and lower output.

As low-cost oil producers like Saudi Arabia have kept production near record levels, more than 150 U.S. oil companies and equipment suppliers have gone bankrupt, and domestic production has dropped. U.S. oil fell to $44.76 a barrel on Monday.

Oil production from Iran, one of the largest oilproducing nations within OPEC, has climbed by 740,000 barrels a day since December to 3.63 million in June, a five-year high. Iran is fighting for market share again after the United States and Western powers lifted oilexport sanctions on the Islamic Republic earlier this year, though some analysts believe its output could hit a ceiling soon.

Saudi Arabia’s oil fields put out more crude, as well, bringing production to 10.33 million barrels a day last month, as it fed rising domestic demand for oil, according to Platts.

But half of the surge in OPEC production last month came from Nigeria, which produced an additional 150,000 barrels a day after a pause in militant attacks that damaged or destroyed pipelines and oil wells across the Niger Delta, the African nation’s oil region. But some militants resumed attacking Nigerian oil infrastructure this month despite a 30-day cease-fire agreement.

Meanwhile, oil production in Venezuela, another OPEC nation, dropped by 120,000 barrels a day to its lowest point since 2003 as the South American country wrestled with financial problems, including its large debts with oil field service companies, Platts said.