Iran ramping up oil production

Adding further pressure to the attempt to support the price of oil, Iran recently stated it will increase production to 4 million barrels per day by April, approximately 100,000 more barrels per day than it's producing now,according to Reuters, citing SHANA, the official news site of the Iranian oil ministry.

With the amount of supply coming from producers outside of the output cut deal launched in January, it puts even more pressure on the price of oil, which has continued to be in the $50 to $55 per barrel range, with the most likelihood it'll break downward with the fundamentals favoring more, rather than less production going forward. This is the reason OPEC in particular is already floating the idea of deepening and extending the cut: it isn't working. Only about 50 days into the 6-month deal, it is already considered to be ineffective in producing the desired results.

Iran production in the short term

National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) head Ali Kardor, was recently cited by the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) as saying the country was going to produce 4 million barrels per day by April. That's about 100,000 more than the approximate 3.9 million barrels per day produced in January.

That will probably occur earlier, as Kardor said he sees oil output reaching 4 million barrels per day by the end of the Iranian year, which is on March 20. Either way, this isn't a insignificant amount when considering the U.S. is rapidly increasing production, and Canada and Brazil are expected to add over 400,000 more barrels per day to global supply in 2017.