OPEC Needs to Meet Less of Oil Demand Growth By 2012, Firm Says

March 19 (Bloomberg) — The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, supplier of about 40 percent of the world’s crude oil, needs to meet less than half of the forecast gain in demand by 2012, Wood Mackenzie Consultants Ltd. said.

OPEC will probably have to increase production “not much more than 2 or 3 million barrels a day” by 2012, John Waterlow, a principal analyst at the Edinburgh-based firm, said in an interview in Sydney today.

Demand will likely rise by about 10 million barrels a day over the next five years, barring a “major recession,” Waterlow said. Most of that will be met by suppliers outside OPEC and by gas liquids and non-conventional supplies, such as oil sands, he said.

“Over that period we don’t actually see there to be much of a problem in supply meeting demand even if demand grows relatively strongly,” Waterlow said.

Bloomberg