In the recent Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries report the OPEC oil production remained nearly unchanged during October compared with September 2011’s oil production levels.
OPEC’s crude oil production reached 29,888 thousand bbl/d in October compared with 29,882 thousand bbl/d in September. Libya’s oil production sharply rose by 264 thousand bbl/d to 350 thousand bbl/d compared with an average of 1.6 million bbl/d back in 2010.
There were modest declines in production in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Nigeria’s oil production by 70.1 thousand bbl/d, 79.3 thousand bbl/d, and 71.4 thousand bbl/d, respectively. The rest of OPEC countries nearly didn’t change their oil quotas during October.
The global oil supply averaged in October at 88.35 million bbl/d, which is roughly 0.87 million bbl/d increase.
The revised oil supply of non-OPEC countries is estimated at 52.50 million bbl/d in 2011, an increase of 0.22 million bbl/d compared with 2010. This revised estimate is sharply lower than last month’s report. The countries with downward adjustment were UK, Australia, Brazil, and China.
The expected worldwide crude oil demand growth wasn’t revised in the recent report. The global oil demand is estimated to grow in 2011 by 0.90 mbbl/d to an average of 87.81 million bbl/d.
OECD countries’ total oil demand is estimated to decline by 0.59% or 0.27 mbbl/d in 2011 to 45.88 mbbl/d, compared with 46.15 mbbl/d in 2010. This revised projection is slightly lower than last month’s report.
These findings poses changes in different direction for the oil market: as the crude oil supply was revised down, while the crude oil demand showed only a modest growth in 2011. If these findings represent the oil market well, this could mean that fundamentally, crude oil prices may eventually decline in the months to come if the oil market will keep loosen by a decrease in crude oil demand.
For further reading:
Natural Gas Prices Monthly Outlook for November 2011
Crude Oil Prices – Daily Outlook November 7
OPEC’s Oil Production Slipped in September -OPEC October Report