On the morning of July 8th in the Asian market, due to the market's ongoing assessment of the potential impact of Tropical Storm Barry on U.S. oil and gas operations, the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) Brent crude oil futures prices slightly declined. As of the time of writing, the September contract price for Brent crude oil futures was $86.43 per barrel, down 11 cents from the July 5th settlement price, when the contract fell by 89 cents.

According to the latest ICE options and futures data, the net long position in Brent crude oil has climbed to just under 196,000 lots, rising for the fourth consecutive week and setting the longest continuous period since April.

Affected by both bullish and bearish forces, Brent oil prices have closed higher for the fourth week in a row, reaching the highest level since late April last Friday. The reasons for the continuous rise in Brent oil are: the surge in market demand for crude oil with the arrival of summer, the reduction of U.S. crude oil inventories, adverse weather cutting crude oil supply, and the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy outlook.

However, according to the renowned market analyst Tsvetana Paraskova, some OPEC+ member countries have not complied with the production cut agreement, which may cast a shadow over future oil prices. Paraskova stated that some OPEC+ member countries (especially Iraq, Kazakhstan, and Russia) are still in a state of overproduction, causing market concern. Originally, under market conditions, the earliest time for OPEC+ to voluntarily relax production cuts allowed was in the fourth quarter.

As required by OPEC, the aforementioned countries need to make up for the excess production in recent months before September 2025, but this constraint may have little effect. Currently, there is no indication that Iraq and Kazakhstan have managed to reduce their respective production to the designated quota, let alone make up for the previous excess production.

Iraq is the second-largest oil-producing country in OPEC. According to the latest monthly report from OPEC, Iraq failed to adhere to the daily production limit of 4 million barrels, with a daily production of 4.195 million barrels in May, a decrease of 7,000 barrels from April, but nearly 200,000 barrels higher than the target. In addition, Kazakhstan also "cheated" on oil production in June, exceeding the quota. Relevant data shows that Kazakhstan's crude oil daily production in June was 1.538 million barrels, higher than in May, and about 70,000 barrels higher than the OPEC+ stipulated daily production limit of 1.468 million barrels.

Analysis suggests that the above situation indicates that OPEC+'s struggle to control cheaters over the years has not ended. This also sends a bearish signal to the market. Paraskova believes that although OPEC+ has begun to publicly announce the production surplus levels of individual member countries, it is uncertain whether it can make the cheaters who have not complied with the production cut agreement for years start to adhere to their quotas. Continued overproduction may weaken the impact of OPEC's production cuts on the oil market.

As of last week's closing, international crude oil futures fell. The main contract settlement price for U.S. WTI crude oil futures was reported at $83.16 per barrel, a decrease of $0.72 or 0.9%. The main contract settlement price for Brent crude oil futures was reported at $86.54 per barrel, a decrease of $0.80 or 0.9%.