OPEC output hits new high in May: Reuters survey

OPEC on Wednesday trimmed its forecast for global growth in oil demand in 2013, becoming the second of the world’s closely watched oil forecasters this week to predict weaker consumption. The move by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in a monthly report follows a similar downward revision to oil demand growth in 2013 by the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Tuesday.

Iraq is sharpening a push to sell its swelling crude output and sit at oil’s top table with Saudi Arabia, sweetening terms for contract buyers next year, its customers say. Iraqi Oil Minister Abdul-Kareem Luaibi held court to oil executives in Vienna’s Hotel Imperial last week on the sidelines of an OPEC meeting. Some buyers have said they were concerned by higher prices and variable quality.

Rosneft reported one of the largest rises in crude output among the Russian oil majors last year More crude from state-owned top producer Rosneft kept Russian oil output the highest in the world last year, ahead of Saudi Arabia, Energy Ministry data showed on Wednesday. Crude output edged up almost 1% to a new post-Soviet high of 10.37 million barrels per day (bpd), but the increase could halt this year due to depleted oil fields in West Siberia.

LONDON (Reuters) - OPEC oil output has risen slightly in October as extra supplies from Iraq, Angola and Libya have offset disruptions in Nigeria and a further decline in Iran to its lowest in two decades, a Reuters survey found on Wednesday. The survey indicates Iraq's expansion in export capacity and continued high output from top exporter Saudi Arabia are helping to compensate for reduced supply from Iran, whose output has fallen sharply due to Western sanctions. Supply from the 12-member Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has averaged 31. ...

Soaring U.S. oil production should be enough to allow consumers withstand most potential supply shocks, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday, as it cut estimates for global oil demand. “The oil-producing world today is in the midst of a onceinageneration transition of farreaching consequences,” the IEA, which coordinates the energy policies of major consuming nations, said in its monthly oil market report.

OPEC’s likely decision to leave quotas unchanged next week belies the growing prospect of having to make the deepest oil-production cuts since 2009 as a global supply surge threatens to weaken prices. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries may need to lower output by 1 million barrels a day, or 3%, in the first half of next year, according to Societe Generale SA. Brent crude may drop 20% by June if the group doesn’t reduce the amount it pumps, the Centre for Global Energy Studies said.

Venezuela could boost its long stagnant oil output considerably in just five to seven years if it offers investors greater certainty over contracts, an executive of Russia’s LUKOIL said. Under president Hugo Chavez, who died on Tuesday after 14 years in power, foreign oil companies in Venezuela, the world’s 11th largest crude exporter, have faced price controls and currency devaluations along with threats of nationalisation.

A surge in U.S. oil production has pushed the country’s output to the highest level since 1992, threatening the dominance of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The U.S. pumped 7.06 million barrels a day in the week ended Feb. 8, up 1 percent from the previous week and extending last year’s 19 percent gain, the Energy Information Administration said today. OPEC production fell to the lowest level in a year in January, the Paris-based International Energy Agency said today in its monthly report.