Global oil output up 300,000 BPD in September: IEA

Global oil production rose 300,000 barrels per day (BPD) in September, with the bulk of the rise due to returning Iraqi output and a modest increase from Russia, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday.

The world oil production in August was 80.11 million BPD, several news agencies including Kompas (11/10/03) newspaper quoted the International Energy Agency (IEA) as saying.

Output from non-members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) rose 135,000 BPD, OPEC crude by 90,000 BPD and other OPEC supply by 70,000 BPD, the Paris-based agency said in its monthly oil market report.

OPEC crude output averaged 26.66 million BPD with Iraqi production increasing by 380,000 BPD.

Iraq?s oil output is on track for its target of 1.45 million BPD by December and it is averaging 1.9 million BPD in October, which is far below its pre-war capacity of 2.8 million BPD.

It said OPEC?s decision on September 24 to cut production targets by 900,000 BPD to 24.5 million BPD from November 1 had taken observers by surprise.

A further meeting has been scheduled for December 4 in Vienna to review market developments.

Additional cuts by the OPEC-10, which excludes Iraq, to below 24 million BPD were seen as unlikely without cooperation from non-OPEC producers, the IEA said.

The agency left its estimate of global oil demand unchanged at 78.4 million BPD for 2003 and 79.4 million BPD for 2004.

The IEA also said the growing oil production from Iraq, and non-OPEC producers could outstrip demand and reverse the steady decline of petroleum inventories in the major consuming nations by the end of the year.

A counter-seasonal contraction in heating oil deliveries lowered the assessment of demand from industrialized countries for the third quarter, but set the stage for a sharp rebound in demand for distillate fuels in the fourth quarter.

High oil prices and investor pressure to keep inventory stocks down pushed petroleum inventories in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries to record low in February 2003.

Since February, stocks have been slowly improving although they are at the low end of the range.

Industry oil stocks in member countries of the OECD closed August at 2.551 billion barrels, three million higher than in July but 76 million below 2002, the agency said.

Crude oil inventories fell by 640,000 BPD while growth in product inventories barely outpaced fall the fall in crude. (*)