The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, a group known as OPEC+, agreed on Thursday to postpone by three months until April 2025 the date on which they will start increasing crude oil production, due to weak demand and increased production from outside the group, Reuters reports.

According to the initial schedule, the cartel’s member states intended to eliminate voluntary production cuts equivalent to 2.2 million barrels per day starting in January 2025. However, given the unfavorable economic context, the member states decided to extend these adjustments “until the end of March 2025,” the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) announced in a statement published at the end of a video conference with its allies, according to Agerpres.

Despite OPEC+’s oil output cuts, Brent crude has remained in the $70-$80 range this year and was trading at $72 a barrel on Thursday.

“They’ve been talking about this production increase since June but they keep putting it off,” said Bjarne Schieldrop, an analyst at SEB. He said the oil market’s attention will now turn to President-elect Donald Trump, who could impose new sanctions on Iran, additional tariffs on China and has vowed to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.

OPEC+’s decision to postpone the production increase until April 2025 comes against a backdrop of the oil market being oversupplied next year, according to the International Energy Agency’s latest estimates. In addition, the latest data, released on Wednesday, shows that US crude oil production reached a record high of more than 13.5 million barrels per day in November.

OPEC+ currently includes eight countries: Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman.