OPEC News

Published: Friday, July 10, 2009 at 6:01 a.m. Last Modified: Friday, July 10, 2009 at 4:09 a.m. Oil prices briefly fell under $60 a barrel on Thursday after nearly two weeks of uninterrupted declines, as traders and investors acknowledged that a global economic recovery would take longer than hoped.

The International Energy Agency Friday slightly revised up its 2010 world oil demand forecast but cautioned that consumer and industrial appetite for petrol this year remains feeble as recessionary effects linger.

Oil price speculators have the potential to damage the world economy, OPEC's secretary general warned Wednesday, a day after the US government said it may tighten rules on oil traders.

Oil rebounded towards $US61 a barrel on Thursday, correcting from a seven-week low hit on bearish oil data that outlined continued weak demand amid growing concerns about the pace of economic recovery.

OPEC believes the world will need less crude oil from the organiztion in 2013 than it did last year as the significant impact of recession curtails demand and rising biofuels supply makes up fo shrinking production elsewhere.

Oil prices slipped below the $62 a barrel mark Wednesday reflecting growing concerns over a slower-than-expected recovery in the global economy and OPEC predictions of a lasting crimp in world demand.

OPEC says that demand for its crude has fallen so sharply because of the world recession that it will take another four years to recover to 2008 levels.

The Libyan government's plans to raise production capacity to 3 million b/d by 2012 have been revised down largely due to OPEC constraints, National Oil Corporation's exploration manager Fituri Elhag said Tuesday.

The optimistic outlook of the world economic recovery is a major factor driving the rebound of international oil prices in the first half of this year.

Kuwait wants to see the price of oil stay above $60 a barrel, the OPEC member's oil minister said on Sunday.

OPEC is a oesatisfieda with the current oil price, OPEC President Jose Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos said on Friday in Beijing.

The "rogue trader" who is suspected of moving the price of oil by up to $2 on Tuesday would have cost his employer $650m if the trade had not been discovered and closed, according to sources.

The IEA and OPEC are different organizations. Their briefs are different. They represent two worlds, two distinct interest groups and two schools of thought.

An oil price of US$60 a barrel is normal, OPEC president Jose Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos said in Beijing yesterday.

There's an old joke about a fantastic three-legged pig and a farmer. It comes in many versions.

Iraq faces regulatory, administrative and political barriers that will prevent it from major oil production expansion for at least five years, David Fyfe, the head of the International Energy Agency's Oil Industry and Markets Division, said on Tuesday.

Sharp cuts in upstream spending mean that world crude production capacity will grow by just 4.2 million b/d in the period to 2014 rather than by the 5.5 million b/d forecast last November, the International Energy Agency said Monday in its Medium-Term Oil Market Report.

The global economic downturn and its impact on gas consumption will be high on the agenda when ministers from a club of countries holding more than three-quarters of the world's gas reserves meet in Doha.

Death by a thousand cuts. Or in the case of the efficiency of the U.S. economy, by at least four: energy policy, health care policy, trade union resurgence, and fiscal madness.

Russia clearly sees itself as an observer and not a member of OPEC, President Dmitry Medvedev told the oil producer group's current president on Friday.