Peter Mondrose
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has left its demand growth forecast for crude oil unchanged. The organization on Wednesday said that it expects the current oversupply in the market to ease over the coming quarters.
In the organization’s monthly market report, OPEC said oil demand growth in 2015 will remain unchanged at 1.18 million barrels per day. OPEC said its expectations of demand for its own oil this year remains at 29.3 million barrels a day — 300,000 higher than 2014.
Risks in U.S. oil demand remain skewed to the upside as lower price environment plays a role in pushing up demand for transportation fuels that consume more gasoline such as SUVs and trucks.
The organization believes non-OPEC crude oil output will remain unchanged at 680,000 barrels per day. The organization also said its own production rose by 24,000 barrels a day to 30.98 million barrels in May 2015. That output increased because of higher numbers from Iraq and Angola. Iraq produced 3.8 million barrels a day in May, up from 3.695 million barrels in the previous month.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter produced 10.333 million barrels a day last month, up from 10.308 million barrels a day in April.
Even with demand outlooking unchanged and increasing supplies, OPEC believes the 2 million barrels a day of overproduction will “east in the coming quarters.” The report still suspects that U.S. production will decline in Q3 2015.
