rose to a four-year high of over $80 for the benchmark Brent crude in response to concerns about constraints on global supply. The production capacity in Venezuela had decreased. United States sanctions against Iran, OPEC's third-biggest oil producer, were set to be restored and tightened in November. The price of oil dropped in November 2018 because of a number of factors, including "rising petro-nations’ oil production, the U.S. shale oil boom, and swelling North American oil inventories," according to Market Watch. The 1 November 2018 U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) report announced that the US had become the "leading crude oil producer in the world" when it hit a production level of 11.3 million barrels per day (bpd) in August 2018, mainly because of its shale oil production. US exports of petroleum—crude oil and products—exceeded imports in September and October 2019, "for the first time on record, based on monthly values since 1973." When the price of Brent oil dropped rapidly in November 2018 to $58.71, more than 30% from its peak,—the biggest 30-day drop since 2008—factors included increased oil production in Russia, some OPEC countries and the United States, which deepened global over supply. In 2019 the average price of Brent crude oil in 2019 was $64, WTI crude oil was $57, the OPEC Reference Basket (ORB) of 14 crudes was $59.48 a barrel. In 2020, the economic turmoil caused by the COVID-19 recession, included severe impacts on crude oil markets, which caused a large stock market fall. The substantial decrease in the price of oil was caused by two main factors: the 2020 Russia–Saudi Arabia oil price war and the COVID-19 pandemic, which lowered demand for oil because of lockdowns around the world. The IHS Market reported that the "COVID-19 demand shock" represented a bigger contraction than that experienced during the Great Recession during the late 2000s and early 2010s. As demand for oil dropped to 4.5m million bpd below forecasts, tensions rose between OPEC members. At a 6 March OPEC meeting in Vienna, major oil producers were unable to agree on reducing oil production in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. The spot price of WTI benchmark crude oil on the NYM on 6 March 2020 dropped to US$42.10 per barrel. On 8 March, the 2020 Russia–Saudi Arabia oil price war was launched, in which Saudi Arabia and Russia briefly flooded the market, also contributed to the