Oil prices fall as OPEC+ ramps up production; U.S. stock futures decline as tariffs to go into effect Aug. 1

AnonymousBusiness2025-07-085800

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries headquarters in Vienna. - Getty Images

Crude oil prices CL.1 fell Sunday after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies announced Saturday they will increase oil production by a larger-than-expected amount in August, as part of a continuing effort to reclaim market share by lowering prices.

Meanwhile, U.S. stock-market futures declined as the Trump administration said a broad swath of tariffs against U.S. trade partners won’t take effect until Aug. 1, rather than July 9.

Most Read from MarketWatch

‘Today is my 61st birthday’: I have my ex-spouse’s Social Security benefits. Should I retire at 65 and travel?
‘I’m single’: At 70, I have $500,000 in stocks and $220,000 in savings. How do I invest my $130,000 windfall?
‘She’s in a shaky marriage that could soon end’: Will my daughter’s husband get my IRA when I die?
My wife and I are in our late 60s. Do I sell stocks to pay our $30,000 credit-card debt — or do it gradually over 3 years?
I put my $500K inheritance into a joint account with my husband. Can I leave half of it to my son from a previous marriage?

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures YM00 fell about 130 points, or 0.3%, late Sunday. S&P 500 futures ES00 and Nasdaq-100 futures NQ00 were off around 0.4%. President Donald Trump’s deadline for nations to agree to deals to avoid steep tariffs is this coming Wednesday, but he said earlier Sunday that the U.S. would not start collecting those levies until Aug. 1. White House officials also suggested more trade deals will be finalized this week.

The S&P 500 SPX and Nasdaq COMP finished Thursday at record highs, while the Dow DJIA gained as well. Markets were closed Friday for the July 4 holiday.

On Saturday, eight members of OPEC+, led by Saudi Arabia, said they would hike August’s output to 548,000 barrels a day, up from an already upgraded 411,000 barrels a day in May, June and July. It’s part of a plan to unwind voluntary supply cuts from 2023, and the latest output hike will put crude production on pace to get back up to speed a year earlier than originally planned. The move also serves as a punishment for countries that have been over-producing oil, such as Iraq and Kazakhstan, and an opportunity for oil-producing nations like Saudi Arabia to win back market share from U.S. shale drillers as prices fall.

In a statement, the eight nations cited the “current healthy oil market fundamentals and steady global economic outlook.”

West Texas Intermediate crude for August CLQ25 slid about 1.6% late Sunday, to around $65.92 a barrel. Brent crude for September BRNU25, the global benchmark, fell about 0.9%.

Story Continues

But despite the latest production hikes, it may be difficult to create an oversupply of oil. Stan Majcher, portfolio manager at Hotchkis & Wiley, told MarketWatch earlier this month that natural declines in the rate of production as oil wells age could partially offset the hikes in the long term.

Read more: Can OPEC+ flood the world with crude? It’s harder than oil traders think.

Eventually, the “price of crude oil will rise as the market realizes that it is difficult to oversupply the market other than in the short term, and that global [production] decline rates will be difficult to overcome,” he said.

Crude prices have been on a roller-coaster ride in recent months amid Middle East tensions, particularly after Israel’s bombing campaign of Iran’s nuclear sites in June, which raised fears that Iran could hinder the flow of out moving through the Strait of Hormuz.

But with tensions recently easing and the flow of oil going on uninterrupted, and with the production hikes in recent months, crude benchmarks have declined about 7.5% year to date, and about 20% over the past 12 months.