❗️War on Iran erodes OPEC+ grip on global oil markets – The Cradle
❗️War on Iran erodes OPEC+ grip on global oil markets
Six months into the US-Israeli war on Iran, OPEC+, the world’s most powerful oil alliance, is facing an unfamiliar reality: it has lost much of its ability to influence a market it once helped shape.
The war has closed a major export route for West Asian crude and damaged energy infrastructure in several OPEC member states, reducing the group’s share of global production and, consequently, its influence over prices. Its policy decisions and statements now have little impact on oil markets.
Instead, declining Chinese crude imports have become one of the defining factors of 2026, helping stabilize oil markets amid what analysts call the worst supply disruption on record.
OPEC+ accounted for around 40% of global oil production in July, according to Reuters calculations based on International Energy Agency data.
That compares with more than 48% before the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran in late February. Around four to five percentage points of that decline resulted from the United Arab Emirates’ withdrawal from OPEC in May.
The alliance’s core group of seven producers, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, represented just one-quarter of global oil output in July.
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