We are halfway through Q1 2026, and this is turning out to be one of the most disappointing oil gluts I’ve ever seen. With the consensus estimating a 2-4 million b/d surplus, you would think oil prices would be crashing through $50, and yet here we are. Brent just closed above $70/bbl today following the escalating geopolitical tensions in Iran. With no surplus in sight, bears lack the willingness or ammunition to push prices lower.
Meanwhile, global oil supplies are peaking sooner than you think. By our estimate, in the next 18 months, the world will be in a rude awakening.
OPEC+
OPEC+ excluding Saudi supplies have already peaked. I believe the peak occurred in Q4 2025. There are multiple headwinds working against OPEC+ going forward, but most importantly, the sudden “constraint” in production is not the result of some newfound religious discipline; it’s the fact that it was never a cohesive production cut to begin with.
This is best illustrated by this wonderful chart from Giovanni Staunovo, UBS’s oil analyst.
Source: Giovanni Staunovo
OPEC+ reversed course in April last year following the truncated production increase (3 month production increase squeezed into 1). At the time, most analysts, including us, pointed out the overall production level and noted that most of the cheaters were already cheating. The only country that truly adhered to the production quota was Saudi Arabia.
Fast forwarding to today, the CPC outage lowered Kazakhstan production in January, but the disappointment started in September 2025. In fact, if you look at OPEC+ crude exports excluding Saudi Arabia, you will notice that Q4 will likely be the peak.
To make the argument even more convincing, if you exclude the UAE, the figure is even more obvious.
Based on both secondary sources and crude export data, the obvious conclusion to arrive at is the following: