Опек повысил прогнозы по потреблению нефти (таблица)

By Alexander Kwiatkowski
March 10 (Bloomberg) — The Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries said it will need to pump more crude than
previously forecast this year after cutting its outlook for
production of natural gas liquids.
OPEC, which produces about 40 percent of the world’s oil,
predicts members will need to produce 28.94 million barrels a
day to satisfy demand in 2010. That’s about 190,000 barrels a
day more than last month’s projection. Still, OPEC expects
demand for its crude this year to be lower than last year after
it increased its estimate for 2009 by 200,000 barrels a day.
“Even taking into account the uncertainty regarding demand
for OPEC crude, current OPEC production is likely to exceed
market needs,” the Vienna-based secretariat said in the report.
“This, along with the steady rise in spare capacity in both the
upstream and downstream, provides a further cushion for
the projected increase in oil demand in the second half of the
year.”
OPEC will meet March 17 in Vienna to decide production
quotas. Shokri Ghanem, chairman of Libya’s National Oil Corp.,
said this week that “no new decision” about production levels
is expected at the meeting. Projected demand levels are still
“much less” than OPEC’s current production, meaning stockpiles
could increase, the group said today.
The producer group increased its forecast for worldwide oil
consumption in 2010 by 120,000 barrels a day to 85.24 million
barrels a day. That represents growth of 880,000 barrels a day
from 2009, 80,000 barrels a day more than it forecast last
month. Consumption growth is driven entirely by developing
economies and will remain sensitive to the pace of global
economic recovery, according to OPEC.

‘Questions Remain’

“Questions remain as to how long governments will be able
to afford supporting their economies,” OPEC said in the report.
“Should this support diminish, then world oil demand would of
course be impacted.”
The increase in projected demand is offset by stronger
production from countries outside the group. Non-OPEC supply is
expected to climb 410,000 barrels a day this year to 51.43
million barrels a day. That increase is 80,000 barrels a day
more than OPEC forecast last month.
The revision to the amount of crude OPEC thinks it will
have to pump next year, the so-called call on OPEC crude, is
driven by a drop in the projected production of its own natural
gas liquids.
NGL and non-conventional oil production is estimated to
average 4.87 million barrels a day this year, 230,000 barrels a
day less than forecast last month. Natural gas liquids, which
can be made into fuels of petrochemical feedstocks, aren’t
included in the organization’s supply quota of 24.845 million
barrels a day.
The International Energy Agency, which advises oil-
consuming nations, will release its own monthly report on March
12. OPEC’s 12 members are Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq,
Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab
Emirates and Venezuela. Iraq is exempt from the quota system.