WASHINGTON: The US government’s top energy forecaster yesterday said it raised its estimate for world crude prices in 2010 by about 20% to near $60 a barrel due to delays bringing new oil fields on line.
African producers like Angola and Nigeria and Latin American states like Brazil will be slower than initially projected in ramping up production from new projects, putting a squeeze on world supply, said Guy Caruso, administrator of the Energy Information Administration.
“It’s clearly going to take longer now to bring on the new supplies and to have an impact on price than we were thinking a year ago,” Caruso told reporters.
World crude oil prices are projected to average $57.47 a barrel in 2010 based on 2005 dollars, versus a year-ago estimate of $47.29 a barrel in 2004 dollars, he said.
“The front end of the curve is now much higher than we were thinking a year ago,” Caruso said. “We were too ... optimistic of how fast the price would go down” due to new projects coming online,” Caruso said.
US crude oil futures have hovered around $60 a barrel in recent weeks, down from the record $78.40 hit in July.
World crude prices will dip to $49.87 a barrel in 2015 and then rise steadily to average $59.12 in 2030, the EIA said. That’s versus the $56.97 a barrel average for 2030 that the EIA predicted last year.
Meanwhile, Opec producers are expected to grab a slightly smaller share of the global oil market by the end of the decade than previously forecast as supplies from the Caspian Sea increase, the EIA said in its annual energy outlook.
Opec members will pump 34.72mn bpd in 2010, the EIA said, versus its year-ago projection of 36.67mn bpd. The EIA shaved Opec’s 2010 market share to 38.1% versus last year’s estimate of 40%.
Non-Opec producers will pump 56.34mn bpd in 2010, versus year-ago projections of 54.33mn bpd, the EIA said.
But Opec will regain its losses by 2030 with a 40.6% share of the global oil market, which will average 117.33mn bpd in 2030, the EIA said.
Caruso also said Saudi Arabia was on track to meet its goal of expanding oil production capacity to 12.5mn bpd by the end of 2009.
Caruso who met with Saudi oil officials two weeks ago said they told him the kingdom may actually meet its expanded production goal sooner, possibly by the middle of 2009.
“They’re on track to meet their goals ... maybe even a little ahead of schedule,” Caruso said. “They told me they thought they might even be (finished) by the middle of 2009,” he added.
The EIA says Saudi Arabia currently has an oil production capacity of between 10.5mn and 11mn bpd a day, while the kingdom’s actual output was forecast at 8.85mn bpd during November.
While Saudi Arabia is set to have more production capacity in 2009, Caruso said the officials did not tell him what they thought the kingdom’s actual oil output would be at that time. – Reuters |
