The oil-producing group agreed during an online meeting to increase quotas by 188,000 barrels per day from August, on top of similar increases for June and July.

The seven core members of Opec+, which groups Opec and allied producers including Russia, have hiked their output quotas from April through July by almost 800,000 bpd.

Yet the increase has remained largely on paper because of the US-Israeli war on Iran, which closed the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic for some of the most important Opec+ members, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq.

Production begins to recover

Opec+ output fell to 33.13 million bpd in May, according to Opec data, from 42.77m bpd in February. It began to recover in June thanks to US efforts to help the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other Opec+ nations export more oil, but is still below pre-war levels.

Despite persisting supply disruptions, oil prices have returned to pre-war levels, pressured by lower Chinese imports, higher exports from non-Middle East producers, and a record global strategic stock release coordinated by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

“The group of seven kept unwinding their production cuts as widely expected,” UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said.

“The near-term focus will remain on how many tankers will manage to cross the Strait of Hormuz and how quickly demand and Chinese crude imports recover.”

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Washington and Tehran to end the war has also helped convince traders that supply will ultimately return to normal levels.

Iraq pressing for higher quotas

Brent crude prices traded near $72 per barrel on Friday, down from recent peaks of more than $120 per barrel and back to levels traded just before the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28.

Besides agreeing production targets, Opec+ is also facing other challenges after the UAE left the group and Iraq signalled it wants higher quotas.

Opec+ includes 21 members, including Iran, but in recent years only the seven nations and the UAE until its departure have been involved in monthly production management.

Those seven producers Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Kazakhstan and Oman are boosting output as part of the phased rollback of a 1.65m bpd supply cut agreed in 2023, when the group still included the UAE.

The UAE quit the alliance in late April because it wanted to align its capacity more closely with its production, free of production restraints imposed by the group.

From August, taking into account the UAE’s exit from May 1, the seven core members will still have about 379,000 bpd of the original cut to return to the market, according to Reuters calculations.

With the August increase now decided, they will have fully unwound the 2023 cut if they make one more hike of around the same size for September at their next meeting on August 2.

In the first incident, a senior police official said that a group of armed men entered the Killi Badawan area and began firing on their opponents, which resulted in the death of four tribesmen and a young girl.

The four tribesmen died on the spot after receiving multiple bullet injuries, while the young girl succumbed to her wounds when taken to Quetta for treatment. The official added that before fleeing the area, the armed men fired “hundreds” of bullets in the air.

A heavy contingent of police and law enforcement agencies reached the site of the incident and launched an operation to trace the perpetrators.

Police said the armed attack stemmed from an old enmity as the aggrieved party had killed six persons of the attackers some time ago. One of the attackers was also quoted as declaring on the spot, “We have taken revenge today”.

Later, the attacked tribe briefly blocked the Quetta-Chaman highway, staging a protest with the bodies and demanding the arrest of the armed assailants.

However, Qila Abdullah Deputy Commissioner Manzoor Magsi and the assistant commissioner held successful negotiations with the protesters, following which the traffic was restored after several hours.

In another incident, two rival factions of the Bugti clan exchanged fire over a marriage proposal in Dera Bugti.

“Armed men of both groups took position with automatic weapons and opened fire against each other,” a senior police officer told Dawn, adding that four people were killed from both sides and another was injured.

The injured were shifted to the district hospital. A heavy contingent of law enforcement personnel was deployed in the area to prevent further clashes.