Amid fears of global oil supply disruption and production curbs, in its latest monthly report, OPEC expects global oil supplies to remain stable, while cautioning that demand is becoming a growing concern.
In the latest report, OPEC said that preliminary data suggested that the global oil supply increased 490,000 barrels a day to average 98.9 mb/d in August, compared with the previous month.
OPEC projects that in 2018, non-OPEC oil supply will grow by 2.02 mmb/d despite making a downward revision of 64,000 b/d from its last report. In 2019, non-OPEC oil supply is expected to grow by another 2.15 mb/d, an upward revision of 17,000 b/d. Meanwhile, OPEC’s supply is also rising.
According to secondary sources total crude oil production by OPEC members averaged 32.56 mb/d in August, an increase of 278,000 b/d over the previous month. As shown in the table below, oil output increased mostly in Libya, Iraq and Nigeria, while production declined in Iran, which is due to be hit with sanctions on its oil industry from November onwards, Venezuela, which is experiencing economic and political upheavals depressing production, and Algeria.
(Click to enlarge)
Meanwhile, oil production by OPEC’s leader Saudi Arabia rose by 38kb/d to 10.4 million barrels daily, ticking up every month since May, when it and Russia signaled that they could increase output to fill any supply shortages due to incoming U.S. sanctions on Iran’s oil industry.
One curious divergence: according to secondary sources, Iran’s oil supply production fell by 150,000 barrels a day from July to August to around 3.5 mb/d. But according to Iran’s own reporting, production was stable and unchanged production figures for the last three months, however, of 3.8 mb/d.
(Click to enlarge)
But while OPEC sees supply as stable, some clouds emerged on the demand side, where OPEC expects that in 2018 global oil demand is expected to grow by 1.62 million barrels a day, a minor downward revision from last month’s projection.
“World oil demand growth in 2018 was revised downward by around 20,000 b/d, primarily as a result of the slower-than-expected performance by non-OECD Latin America and the Middle East during the second quarter of 2018” OPEC said. “Hence, world oil demand growth is now pegged at 1.62 mb/d for 2018, with total global consumption at 98.82 mb/d.”
.Oilprice.com
