30 July 2013, Lagos – Members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, excluding Iran, recorded about $982 billion, or five per cent increase in net oil export revenue in 2012, according to recent estimates of the United States Energy Information Administration, EIA.
The Western energy watchdog noted that the amount was estimated to be the largest level over the 1975—2012 period.
In its newly-released revenue fact sheet, the EIA estimated that Saudi Arabia earned the largest share of these earnings, $311 billion in 2012, or approximately 32 per cent of total OPEC revenues.
OPEC members are Nigeria, Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.
But the Hindu Business Line reported that the EIA, based on the projection, estimates that members of OPEC, excluding Iran, could earn about $940 billion of net oil export revenues in 2013 and about $903 billion in 2014, in nominal terms (unadjusted for inflation).
“These net export earnings do not include Iran’s revenues, due to the difficulties associated with estimating Tehran’s earnings, including its inability to receive payments and possible price discounts Iran offers its existing customers,” the fact sheet said.
In its 2014, oil outlook, the group, which controls a third of world’s oil, said global oil demand would grow at a rate of 1.2 per cent in 2014, rising from this year’s 0.9 per cent on the back of an overall economic recovery.
The world would need 90.7 million barrels per day (bpd) next year, one million bpd above this year’s level, the Vienna-based organisation said in its first outlook for 2014.
At the same time, OPEC said average demand in 2013 would be slightly lower than previously predicted- 89.64 mbpd instead of 89.65 mbpd.
This downward revision is based on “the more sluggish-than-expected performance of the world economy in the first six months of the year,” OPEC’s analysts said, noting that oil demand forecasts had been lowered especially in China and the Middle East.
Falling oil consumption in industrialised countries was forecast to slow to 200,000 bpd in 2014, compared with the decline of 400,000 bpd this year.
Production is expected to grow especially in North America, where producers have been extracting oil from rock and sand rather than from traditional wells, according to OPEC, which also expects Latin American and former Soviet Union countries to expand production.
As a result, economies around the world would need only an average of 29.6 million bpd of oil from OPEC countries next year, less than last month’s production of 30.4 million bpd.
The 2014 production forecast is also below OPEC’s current self-imposed output ceiling of 30 million bpd, which had been set to protect price levels.
– Chika Amanze-Nwachuku, This Day