The United Arab Emirates pumped 4.1 million barrels of crude a day on average in June, an all time record, the International Energy Agency said in its monthly report. The figure edges past the previous peak of 4 million a day set in 2020 during a brief OPEC+ price war, and follows Abu Dhabi's exit from the producer group at the end of April.
The rebound is the clearest sign yet that the UAE has responded more aggressively than any of its Persian Gulf neighbors to disruption from the Iran war. Abu Dhabi has leaned on its own tanker fleet and hired extra ships from South Korea's Sinokor Group, which now runs the world's largest fleet of oil supertankers. Many of those vessels have sailed with their transponders switched off to move barrels out of the Gulf unseen.
Saudi Arabia, still the region's biggest producer, pumped 7.3 million barrels a day in June, up 900,000 from the previous month, though short of levels before the war. Kuwait rose to 1.4 million a day and Iraq to 2 million, according to the IEA. Refinery activity across the Gulf has been slower to recover, with product exports still less than half of what they were before the conflict.
The rebounding flows, together with the fragile ceasefire that let a wave of tankers pass through the Strait of Hormuz, had flipped world markets from tightness to signs of oversupply and erased the wartime rally in crude prices. Brent futures topped $80 a barrel earlier this week before easing to near $76 on Friday.
The picture darkened again on Wednesday, when President Donald Trump declared the ceasefire effectively void after fresh exchanges in the region. US forces struck sites in Iran for two straight days, and Tehran fired on Bahrain and Kuwait. Traders are now watching how far the UAE will push output outside the group it left in April, and whether that ceiling holds if attacks on shipping close Hormuz again.