VIENNA 5 Nov (ANA) - OPEC slashed estimates for the amount of oil it will need to pump in coming years, projecting that its share of world markets will shrink until the middle of the next decade amid a flood of U.S. shale supplies.

 

The producer group expects that demand for its oil will slide by about 7% over the next four years, slumping to an average of 32.7 million barrels a day in 2023, according to its annual report.

 

That could compel the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners -- who have already curbed output this year to prevent a glut -- to reduce supplies even further, or at least compete more fiercely among themselves for a diminishing portion of global markets.

 

The organization cut forecasts for demand for its oil each year from 2019 through 2023 by an average of about 5 million barrels a day, or roughly 16%, though the numbers have been affected by membership changes. Qatar left the group at the beginning of this year.

 

OPEC will remain under pressure from rising U.S. oil output. America has become the world’s top oil producer through developing hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as “fracking,” in states such as Texas and North Dakota.

 

“The main driver of medium-term non-OPEC supply growth remains overwhelmingly U.S. tight oil,” OPEC said in its latest World Oil Outlook, using another term for shale oil.

 

By 2025, U.S. shale-oil output will climb more than 40% to reach 17 million barrels a day, or 3.1 million a day more than OPEC projected in last year’s report. American oil will account for a fifth of global daily output at that time.

 

But the U.S. deluge will also be supplemented by supplies from regions which had either seemed in decline or uneconomical in an era of constrained crude prices, such as offshore Norway and Brazil, as well as Canada, Guyana and Kazakhstan.(ANA)

FA/ANA/5 November 2019------