In an oversupplied oil market, who backs off first?
- zarra6
- 2 hours ago
- 2 min read
06 November 2025 Vortexa
Global seaborne crude exports remain at seasonally high levels in October despite a comedown from September levels, when global exports crossed ~45mbd. But who is putting these barrels out on water and -- in an oversupplied market -- who will be the first to tap out? As far as supply is concerned, OPEC-8 seaborne exports have been ramping up significantly over the past two months, while on the non-OPEC side, it is the Americas that have seen strong crude export growth over the past three months.
Russia remains the driver behind OPEC-8 exports
The coalition of eight OPEC+ members (OPEC-8) had announced a voluntary production cut in April 2023. Two years on, since April 2025, OPEC-8 have been gradually unwinding these cuts – around 2.9mbd of production cuts thus far. However, the amount of crude that has been put out on water remains below what was announced. It is only over the past two months that an increase in seaborne crude exports from OPEC-8 has been observed.
In September, their seaborne crude exports reached ~22mbd, a 7% increase m-o-m, which then decreased to ~21.6mbd in October, which is still strong compared to the rest of 2025. While the aggregate volumes do sound promising, most of this growth came from Russia which had to push crude barrels to export markets as drone strikes impacted their refining capacity and freed up these barrels. If we take Russia out of the equation, then the OPEC-8 (excl. Russia) seaborne crude exports will trend below the seasonal average, essentially negating any of the announced unwinding of cuts.
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