Update: as expected, it did not take long for Iran – which has the most to lose from any Saudi output hike which would not only send the price of oil lower but also allow Riyadh to capture Iran’s sanctioned market  share – to respond, and moments ago Bloomberg reported that in an interview with Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, Iran’s OPEC governor, he said that “if Saudi Arabia accepts U.S. President Donald Trump’s request to boost output, that means he is calling on them to walk out from OPEC.”

“We are 15 countries in an agreement. Set aside that they do not have the capacity, there is no way one country could go 2 million b/d above their production allocation unless they are walking out of OPEC.”

Well, if they don’t have the capacity (which they do), there is no reason to be concerned. And yet Iran is precisely that, and considering that Trump said Saudi Arabia has “agreed” to his demand, we may have just witnessed the end of OPEC.

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Earlier this week, when within minutes of each other, news hit last Tuesday that first Saudi Arabia would boost production to a record 10.8mmb/d, an increase of nearly 1 million barrels per day from the Kingodm’s current 10.03mmb/d output, only to be followed almost immediately by a warning from the State Department advising US allies of a crackdown on Iran, and demanding they cut their Iranian oil exports to 0 by the Nov. 4 deadline, oil first dipped then spiked, as the market weighed the news of the potential drop in Iranian production far more than any potential Saudi output: after all that was already largely priced in during last weekend’s OPEC summit.

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