EIA: Oil field delays mean higher 2010 crude price

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government’s top energy forecaster on Tuesday said it raised its estimate for world crude prices in 2010 by about 20 percent to near $60 a barrel due to delays bringing new oil fields on line.

African producers like Angola and Nigeria and Latin American states like Brazil will be slower than initially projected in ramping up production from new projects, putting a squeeze on world supply, said Guy Caruso, administrator of the Energy Information Administration.

“It’s clearly going to take longer now to bring on the new supplies and to have an impact on price than we were thinking a year ago,” Caruso told reporters.

World crude oil prices are projected to average $57.47 a barrel in 2010 based on 2005 dollars, versus a year-ago estimate of $47.29 a barrel in 2004 dollars, the EIA said.

“The front end of the curve is now much higher than we were thinking a year ago,” Caruso said. “We were too … optimistic of how fast the price would go down” due to new projects coming online,” he said.

Reuters