	early march opec output seen well below ceiling opec  oil output in the first few days of march was running at about mln bpd down from a mln bpd average for february and well below the mln bpd ceiling the group adopted in december a reuter survey shows the figures were polled by reuters correspondents from oil traders industry executives and analysts in europe the middle east africa latin america and asia they back recent statements by opec ministers that the group is producing within its ceiling to support the return to a fixed price system which came into effect last month opec output for the whole of february was about bpd above the ceiling largely because of overproduction by the united arab emirates and kuwait the figures show the uae together with the much smaller producer ecuador was also producing above quota in the first days of march the survey reveals but such overproduction was compensated for by a sharp fall in saudi arabian output together with iran s inability to export as much as its quota allows iraq rejected its opec quota of mln bpd and produced mln bpd in february and early march the figures showed saudi output excluding movements into stocks fell to mln bpd in early march from mln bpd in february against a mln bpd quota the saudi figures include a bpd share of neutral zone production kuwait which has consistently denied quota violations was estimated to be pumping mln bpd in february and in early march both figures including bpd as its share of neutral zone output against its bpd quota reports of customer resistance to fixed prices set by some opec states were reflected in output from qatar and nigeria both substantially under quota in february and early march qatar s february output was bpd and this fell to bpd in early march compared with its bpd quota industry sources say japanese buyers are resisting qatar s prices and gulf arab oil states have pledged to make up for any shortfall in sales which a fellow gulf state suffers nigeria s early march output was about one mln bpd down from mln bpd in february and its quota of mln bpd industry sources say nigeria s customers believe its bonny grades are overpriced compared with compatible brent s from the u k north sea country by country production figures are as follows in mln bpd country current february quota algeria ecuador gabon indonesia iran iraq kuwait libya nigeria qatar saudi arabia uae venezuela total reuter reuter 
