According to the latest June report by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries vis-à-vis the recent changes in the oil market, the OPEC oil production remained nearly unchanged during May compared with April’s oil production levels.
OPEC’s crude oil production reached 31,582 thousand bbl/d in May compared with 31,640 thousand bbl/d in April. This means the total OPEC oil supply edged down by 57.8 thousand during May. Libya‘s oil production slightly rose again by 57.5 thousand bbl/d to 1,452 thousand bbl/d. The current production levels are still nearly 11% below Libya’s average oil production of 1,600 thousand bbl/d in early 2011 (before the fights began).Kuwait’s oil production edged up by 69.2 thousand bbl/d. Saudi Arabia’s oil production also slightly increased by 39.7 thousand bbl/d. On the other hand Iran’s oil production slightly declined by 71.7 thousand bbl/d and is currently at its lowest production level this year. Nonetheless, the production levels are still well over the 3.1 million bbl mark.
The rest of OPEC countries nearly didn’t change their oil quotas during May 2012.
The revised oil supply of non-OPEC countries is estimated at 53.07 million bbl/d in 2012, an increase of 0.67 million bbl/d compared with 2011’s oil supply.
Assuming OPEC’s supply in 2012 will remain during the rest of 2012 at the same level as during the first five months of 2012 at 31.31 million bbl/d and adding to that OPEC’s NGL’s and non-conventional oil at an estimate of 5.67 the total global supply will reach in 2012 an estimate of 90.05 million bbl/d.
The total world oil demand forecast for 2012 is estimated to reach 88.69 million bbl/d – a growth of 0.9 million bbl/d or roughly 1% compared with 2011’s demand.
The estimated gap between supply and demand on a global will reach during this year a total of 1.36 million bbl/d (i.e. a surplus of 1,360 thousand barrels).
One interpretation of these figures is that if the production will remain unchanged, the prices of crude oil will continue to come down as the oil market loosens up.
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