World Demand for OPEC Crude to Fall in 2015

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) released its December Oil Market Report Wednesday morning, and the cartel said that demand will fall and supply will rise in 2015. No surprises there — in fact, no surprises anywhere.

OPEC now estimates world demand in 2015 to reach 92.26 million barrels a day, up 1.12 million barrels a day over the expected total for 2014. The cartel’s supply forecast calls for non-OPEC supply to total 57.31 million barrels a day in 2015, up from 55.95 million barrels a day on average in 2014. World demand for OPEC crude is set to fall from an average of 29.4 million barrels a day in 2014 to 28.9 million barrels a day in 2015.

The cartel never forecasts its own supply, choosing instead to cite unnamed secondary sources for estimates of demand on OPEC. In November these secondary sources put OPEC’s total crude production at 30.05 million barrels a day, more than 1.1 million barrels a day above 2015’s projected demand on OPEC crude.

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The OPEC reference basket of crude oil — a benchmark similar to Brent or West Texas Intermediate (WTI) — ended the month of November down 11% at $75.57 a barrel. That is the fifth consecutive monthly decline, something OPEC has not seen in nearly six years. The OPEC basket lost nearly $9.50 in November and has taken a loss of around $32 a barrel since July. Year to date, the basket price has averaged $99.57, down from an average of $105.72 in 2013.

Something has to give. At its meeting in Vienna in late November, the cartel chose to maintain production and market share rather than to lower production in an effort to push up prices. Some members of the cartel — Saudi Arabia and Kuwait especially — can afford to wait it out. Others — Venezuela, Angola, Nigeria, among others — argued for a production cut because they cannot afford to wait it out. Unfortunately for the poorer members of OPEC, cutting production would not likely have the desired effect, given the production boom in the United States and the absolute necessity for Russia to pump as much oil as it can.

Crude prices were diving again Wednesday morning, both as a result of the OPEC report and the American Petroleum Institute’s Tuesday evening estimate that U.S. crude inventories grew by 4.4 million barrels last week. The Energy Information Administration’s report on crude oil inventories is due later in the morning, and analysts are expecting a drop of 3 million barrels. Oil traders are siding with the API, with Brent for January delivery trading down more than 1.6% in London at $65.74 and WTI for January delivery trading down nearly 2% on the NYMEX at $62.59.

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