Oil producers in the OPEC+ group this weekend confirmed they will hold output levels flat in the first quarter of next year. This comes after the group spent most of this year increasing oil production.

For most of OPEC’s history, the group and its allies met in person a couple times a year to decide the fate of global oil production. Since the pandemic though, OPEC has gone virtual, only meeting monthly for much of the year, usually on Sundays.

“So yeah, it ruins your weekend, but hey, it’s fun,” said Jorge León, an analyst with Rystad Energy.

He said OPEC sets production levels so that prices don’t climb too high or fall too low. And next year, the group will hold production steady for a few reasons. For one:

“Global demand tends to follow a seasonal pattern. And the first quarter is when demand is the lowest,” Leon said.

Because people travel less. Another reason OPEC ended its streak of increasing output: there’s already an excess of oil on the global market. OPEC has pumped up that excess, to try and win market share.

“But after you get to a certain point, then you can lose control of the market, where there’s so much excess oil, that the oil price could start to slide precipitously,” said Amy Myers Jaffe of NYU.

Which OPEC would like to avoid. But Jaffe said they also don’t want prices to rise too high.

“They have to think about, you know, sort of Goldilocks,” Jaffe said. “What price is not too high that it stimulates more and more electrification.”

As in, more people buying EV’s, and driving off into the sunset never to burn gas again, also something the oil cartel wants to avoid. But there are some parts of the oil market that OPEC can’t control. Tom Seng, of Texas Christian University, said emerging non-OPEC producers, like Guyana and Brazil, are likely to boost their output in 2026.

“These are fairly new plays. They've gotta start getting revenue in to start paying down the CapEx they deployed on these massive offshore platforms. They've gotta start bringing revenue in fairly quickly,” Seng said.

Geopolitics could come into play too. A peace deal in Ukraine could add Russian oil to the market, while a conflict in Venezuela could subtract oil, said León. And then there’s whatever happens with tariffs and trade wars around the world.

Because historically, trade activity drives oil demand. Though León said that connection could weaken as more countries shift toward electrification