LONDON, Dec 5: Opec oil exporters continued to pump far in excess of their official output quotas in November, as fears of a war on Iraq held prices up, a monthly Reuters survey found on Thursday.

Leakage above quotas topped three million barrels per day for a second straight month, although there were some indications of a let-up in the last few days of November, according to the survey of industry officials and monitors.

Oil supply from the 10 Opec members bound by quotas, excluding sanctions-bound Iraq, was 24.88m bpd, 3.18m above the group’s target.

It was almost unchanged from October, when the excess stood at a revised 3.17 million.

Including Iraq, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries pumped 27.32 million bpd in November, some 100,000 above the previous month.

“The excess is partly an acknowledgement that OPEC was too cautious in setting quotas for the third quarter,” said Paul Horsnell of investment bank JP Morgan.—Reuters