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Venezuela says ‘informal’ OPEC chat planned before December meeting

The logo of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is pictured at its headquarters in Vienna, Austria, August 21, 2015. Oil ministers of OPEC nations will hold "candid, informal" talks on Dec. 3, a day before the group’s formally scheduled meeting in Vienna, Venezuela’s oil minister said on Wednesday, adding the idea was suggested by Saudi Arabia. "It’s an informal meeting where we’re going to speak in a very frank way about the market situation, and we’re going to speak frankly about production levels in each country," Venezuelan Oil Minister Eulogio del Pino told Reuters in a phone interview. Price-hawk Venezuela has been pushing for OPEC action to boost prices. OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia, however, has rebuffed those calls and is instead focused on defending market share. The informal meeting will be held at the suggestion of Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Ali al-Naimi, del Pino said. "After […]

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Oil glut to swamp demand until 2020

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OPEC Said to Consider New Output Ceiling as Indonesia Rejoins

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is considering raising its official production target at its next meeting on Dec. 4 to take into account new member Indonesia, according to two OPEC delegates. The production ceiling may be raised by 1 million barrels a day to 31 million barrels, the delegates said, asking not to be identified because the discussions are private. A change doesn’t imply higher production because OPEC itself said it pumped 31.57 million barrels a day in September. The Southeast Asian nation re-entry after a break of almost seven years comes at a time when OPEC has abandoned its traditional role in supporting prices as it seeks to defend market share against supplies from U.S. shale drillers and other rivals. OPEC will now have 13 members, led by Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter. Indonesia’s suspended its membership in 2009 after becoming a net oil importer. […]

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OPEC’s Oil Output Strategy Seen Potentially Backfiring

OPEC’s unwillingness to limit its oil output could help usher in a sustained period of low prices and more pain for its members’ budgets, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday. The comments by the Paris-based monitor of energy trends echoed criticism from within and outside the group over a Saudi-led strategy of keeping the taps open to put pressure on higher-cost rivals such as the U.S. Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries including Venezuela, Iran and Algeria are being badly pinched by fallen oil prices and have agitated for production cutbacks to push them back up. Oil producers that aren’t members of the group are complaining as well: On Monday, Omani oil minister Mohammed Bin Hamad Al Rumhy called current oil production levels “irresponsible” and said the group had contributed to low oil prices. “This is a commodity that if you have 1 million barrels a […]

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OPEC Challenges Shale Afresh as Iraq Crude Floods U.S. Market

OPEC’s latest challenge to U.S. shale oil producers would be about two miles long, lined end to end, and weigh almost 3 million metric tons. It’s due to reach American ports this month. Iraq, the fastest-growing producer within the 12-nation group, loaded as many as 10 tankers in the past several weeks to deliver crude to U.S. ports in November, ship-tracking and charters compiled by Bloomberg show. Assuming they arrive as scheduled, the 19 million barrels being hauled would mark the biggest monthly influx from Iraq since June 2012, according to Energy Information Administration figures. The cargoes show how competition for sales among members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is spilling out into global markets, intensifying competition with U.S. producers whose own output has retreated since summer. For tanker owners, it means rates for their ships are headed for the best quarter in seven years, fueled partly […]

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OPEC Is Likely to Change Course, IEA Says

OPEC is unlikely to sustain its practice of pumping flat out in a fight for global market share and will limit output in a scenario that sends oil prices to $80 a barrel by 2020, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday. Oil prices plunged last year when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and its de facto leader Saudi Arabia, abandoned its traditional role of propping up the market through supply cuts and began ramping up production instead. Prices haven’t recovered, sitting at about $47 a barrel Tuesday, down from $114 a barrel in June 2014. “Many OPEC producers will lose a substantial amount of revenue which will lead them to look at their policies again,” said Fatih Birol, the executive director of the IEA, a Paris-based group that monitors energy trends and data for industrialized nations. Mr. Birol’s comments were part of the release of the IEA’s […]

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IEA Sees OPEC Market Share Growing From 2020 a Rivals Stagnate

OPEC’s share of the global oil market will expand from 2020 as prices recover to $80 and supply outside the group stagnates due to spending cuts, according to the International Energy Agency. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ share of global supply will remain steady at 41 percent until 2020 then rise to 44 percent by 2025, two percentage points higher than the IEA forecast a year ago. Production growth from countries not part of OPEC will slow over the next five years and halt by 2020, as crude prices recover to $80 a barrel. OPEC’s decision last year to defend its market share rather than cut production to support prices has curbed growth of rival supplies like U.S. shale oil. While the resulting 40 percent slump in crude prices has “sharply” reduced the group’s revenues, it will eventually prove beneficial for members that are able to increase output, […]

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$80/Bbl Oil By 2020, Says IEA

0836 GMT — The oil markets should be rebalanced and prices should be in the $80 a barrel range by 2020, according to a new report issued by the International Energy Agency. The Paris-based watchdog’s World Energy Outlook 2015 states that the “process of adjustment in the oil market is rarely a smooth one” but that there should be an equilibrium by the end of the decade. The forecast will not be met with much enthusiasm by many of the world’s oil producers, because most rely on oil revenues as the main source of government income. The Dec Brent contract trades flat at $47.19 a barrel.

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OPEC Chief Sees Oil Market Balanced by 2016 on Growing Demand

Global demand for crude will bring more balance to the oil market as soon as next year, according to OPEC Secretary General Abdalla El-Badri and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and energy consultant Daniel Yergin. Demand will rise by about 17 million barrels a day to almost 110 million barrels a day by 2040, with 70 percent of the growth to come from Asia, the head of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said at an event in Doha. The oil market will rebalance in 2016 or 2017, as demand grows between 1.2 million barrels a day and 1.5 million barrels a day through 2020, Yergin, vice chairman of consultants IHS, said in a speech in Abu Dhabi. “The expectation is that the market will return to more balance in 2016,” El-Badri said Monday. “We see global oil demand maintaining its recent healthy growth. We see less non-OPEC supply. And we […]

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