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Opec July output rose 445,000 barrels, survey shows |
NEW YORK: Crude-oil production in July by members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries rose 445,000 barrels a day, led by gains in Iraq and Nigeria, a Bloomberg News survey showed.
Output averaged 30.48mn barrels a day, according to the survey of oil companies, producers and analysts. It was the biggest gain since January, when Angola joined the producer group. Excluding Angola, it was the largest monthly rise since September 2004.
“More oil is more oil so this will increase supply and is bearish for the market,” said Tim Evans, an energy analyst at Citigroup in New York. “The most dramatic increases were from Iraq and Nigeria, so they could be fleeting.”
The 10 members of Opec with production quotas, all except Angola and Iraq, increased output by 85,000 barrels to 26.595mn barrels a day.
The 10 countries, in an effort to bolster prices, pledged to trim 1.7mn barrels a day in two rounds of cuts, one that started November 1 and another that took effect February 1. They pumped 27.5mn barrels a day in October 2006.
Opec ministers are scheduled to hold their next conference on September 11 in Vienna.
Everyone is already looking ahead to the September meeting, said Neil Atkinson, senior consultant with London-based KBC Market Services.
“The huge fall in crude oil stocks in the US is a sign that lower crude stocks will underpin oil prices. Unless, that is, Opec returns to the market some of the 1.7mn barrels a day of production cuts.”
Iraqi output rose 310,000 barrels to an average 2.235mn barrels a day last month, the highest since October 2004, the survey showed.
Increased exports from the country’s ports and the resumption of shipments by pipeline were responsible for the gain.
Iraqi exports averaged 1.84mn barrels a day in July, up 320,000 barrels from June. Exports in May were revised up 10,000 barrels a day to an average 1.52mn.
Exports from the country’s two Gulf ports, Basrah and Khor al Amaya, averaged 1.73mn barrels a day in July, up 225,000 barrels from the prior month.
Saudi Arabia, Opec’s largest producer and the world’s top oil exporter, pumped an average 8.58mn bpd in July, unchanged from the prior month, the survey showed.
The desert kingdom has 2.22mn barrels a day of spare capacity, almost two-thirds of the Opec total of 3.4mn barrels.
“We are all waiting for Saudi Arabia to open the tap,” said Rick Mueller, an analyst with Energy Security Analysis in Wakefield, Massachusetts.
The July production increase for Opec “was an impressive gain for a single month but would have meant a lot more if the additional oil was coming from Saudi Arabia, since they are the ones with the spare capacity,” Mueller said. – Bloomberg |
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