Saturday, November 2, 2013

OPEC Exports to Drop as U.S. Output Gains, Oil Movements Says

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will cut crude exports through mid-November as rising U.S. output allows the nation to curb purchases from the Middle East and Africa, according to Oil Movements.


OPEC, which supplies about 40 percent of the world’s oil, will reduce sailings by 80,000 barrels a day, or 0.3 percent, to 23.78 million barrels in the four weeks to Nov. 16, the tanker tracker said today in a report.

That compares with 23.86 million in the period to Oct. 19.The figures exclude two of OPEC’s 12 members, Angola and Ecuador.

“There’s a lot of non-OPEC supply coming to the market” from the U.S. and North Sea, Roy Mason, the company’s founder, said by phone from Halifax, England.

OPEC shipments are “weak because of American production,” he said. OPEC exports are set to increase in the second half of next month as heating demand rises before winter in the northern hemisphere, Mason said.

Brent crude traded at $108.68 a barrel as of 4:02 p.m. on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London, about 7 percent lower than a six-month high of $117.34 on Aug. 28.

Middle Eastern shipments will fall 0.7 percent to 17.43 million barrels a day in the month to Nov. 16, versus 17.56 million in the previous period, according to Oil Movements.

Those figures include non-OPEC nations Oman and Yemen. Crude on board tankers will decline by about 6 percent to 462 million barrels on Nov. 16, data from Oil Movements show.

The researcher calculates volumes by tallying tanker bookings and excludes crude held on vessels for storage.

OPEC’s members are Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. It will next meet in Vienna on Dec. 4.

bloomberg.com

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