According to the recent Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries report the OPEC oil production remained unchanged in May compared to April 2011:
OPEC’s crude oil production remained nearly unchanged in May as it reached 28,974 thousand bbl/d compared to 28,803 thousand bbl/d in April. Libya’s oil production is still very low at 169 thousand bbl/d compared with an average of nearly 1.6 million bbl/d back in 2010.
During May, Saudi Arabia kept its oil production quota at nearly 8.8 million bbl/d – a similar level to its oil production quota in recent months.
The global oil supply averaged in May at 86.77 million bbl/d, which is roughly 0.14 million bbl/d above the average in April.
The oil supply of non-OPEC countries is estimated to reach 52.92 million bbl/d in 2011, an increase of 0.66 million bbl/d compared with 2010.
The worldwide crude oil demand is estimate to grow in 2011 by 1.4 mb/d to an average of 88.1 million bbl/d compared with 2010′s average. The rise in demand is driven mainly from the non-OECD countries with China leading the front with an estimated growth of 6.71% from 2010 to 2011 in daily oil consumption.
Non-OECD countries’ demand is estimated to increase by 0.61 mbbl/d in 2011 to 27.44 mb/d.
OECD countries’ total oil demand is estimated to rise by only 0.25% or 0.12 mbbl/d in 2011, compared with 2010 to 46.26 mbbl/d.
The recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused a decline in demand for oil; the uncertainty in the US economy’s progress is also among the reasons for the expected drop in crude oil demand for the rest of 2011.
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