OPEC’s Oil-Production Targets Are Made to Be Broken: Chart

In a surprise to most people, Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries are said to be ready to reintroduce the group’s crude-production target at today’s meeting in Vienna. This show of unity, intended to heal wounds from the failed Doha oil-freeze talks in April, will have little impact on actual output if history is any guide. For more than a decade, the group consistently produced more than its notional ceiling, with the excess rising as high as 3 million barrels a day when the previous target was abandoned in December.

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