SEB Warns of Controlled OPEC+ Supply Surge Once Hormuz Flows Normalize
SEB's chief commodities analyst flags OPEC+ production additions as a clear downside risk for oil in 2027 and 2028 as the group holds October targets steady.
OPEC+ held its October output targets unchanged when members met on Sunday (2026-09-06), pausing a run of monthly increases that had, by the August decision, fully reversed the 1.65 million barrels per day of cuts the alliance had introduced in 2023. Reuters reported that two people familiar with the discussions had expected that outcome before the meeting.6
The pause is widely read as tactical. SEB chief commodities analyst Bjarne Schieldrop, writing to Rigzone on Friday (2026-09-04), warned that the group will almost certainly move to add more volume once Strait of Hormuz exports normalize. "There is a clear risk of controlled OPEC+ supply growth, adding to downside risks for 2027-28," Schieldrop said.7
ICE Brent crude front-month was trading at $97.25 a barrel as of 13:10 UTC on Monday (2026-09-07), up 1.01% on the session. That level owes something to Hormuz-related supply concerns: OPEC+ production dropped 9.4 million barrels per day month-on-month to 42.4 million barrels per day during the worst of the disruptions, and global oil supply fell to 97 million barrels per day in March, the IEA said in its April Oil Market Report, describing it as the largest disruption in history.1
But the alliance's grip on prices has already shown cracks. Writing in a Rigzone report around the same time, Ole Hansen noted that the difficulty of translating higher quotas into actual exports means "the group's ability to influence near-term prices has arguably diminished."7
Those limits showed through much of the summer. On Thursday (2026-08-13), Brent crude fell 42 cents to $88.56 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate dropped 55 cents as sharply lower 2026 demand forecasts from the IEA and OPEC outweighed continuing Hormuz supply concerns. OPEC had on Monday (2026-07-13) lowered its forecast for world oil demand growth in 2026 to 780,000 barrels per day, marking its third straight downward revision.5,3
Waleed Said, technical analyst at GivTrade, wrote to Rigzone on Monday (2026-07-06) that oil was "losing momentum," with traders "shifting attention from geopolitical risk to fresh supply." Samer Hasn, senior market analyst at XS.com, writing the same day, said the market "may be shifting from supply scarcity to oversupply, as major producers raise output."2
The Hormuz premium embedded in current prices matters for how the SEB scenario unfolds. OPEC+ accounts for roughly 60% of global production, oil and gas analyst Askar Ismailov told The Astana Times, and the Strait carries substantial volumes — with the IEA citing tanker restrictions and attacks on energy infrastructure as the cause of March's supply collapse. Any normalization of those flows allows the alliance to convert paper quota increases into actual barrel additions, precisely the 2027-28 scenario Schieldrop flagged.1,7
OPEC has been revising its own demand growth outlook lower even as its projections remain more optimistic than the IEA's. The IEA, for its part, has predicted the first decrease in global oil demand since 2020. That divergence between producer-group optimism and independent forecast cuts complicates any attempt to model how much additional supply OPEC+ would feel confident absorbing without crushing prices.3,4
The process of setting 2027 quotas is already under way, according to Econotimes reporting ahead of the Sunday (2026-09-06) meeting, meaning any supply additions in the Schieldrop scenario will be negotiated through formal channels rather than announced unilaterally. That makes the pace of Hormuz normalization the variable to track: it sets both the timeline and the political cover for members itching to monetize spare capacity. ICE Brent holding above $97 keeps the fiscal incentive alive for producers who have spent three years living inside constrained quotas.6,7