OPEC Review: Group Could Fail To Meet World Oil Demand By 2037

LONDON -(Dow Jones)- A newly published report by Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries indicates the group will be much harder pressed than previously thought to meet the world’s surging oil needs and could realistically fail to supply its share of global oil markets by 2037.

The report in the December issue of the OPEC Review, published by the organization’s Vienna-based Secretariat, also says Kuwait is likely to be an extremely inconsistent and unstable supplier and questions Saudi Arabia’s assertion it is capable of meeting world oil demand for the next 50 years.


While non-OPEC oil producers like Canada, Russia and others are boosting output, it is assumed that they will be unable to produce enough to meet the world’s rapidly growing appetite for oil. OPEC members, currently responsible for 40% of world oil output, are expected to meet the shortfall and provide most of the increased supply.

Using calculations based on the current proven reserves of 11 OPEC member countries (excluding recent entrants Angola and Ecuador), the study maps out three scenarios, which show OPEC could find itself unable to meet its share of global oil demand by either 2048, 2037 or 2024 depending on how quickly its members ramp up output.

The author of the report, Ayoub Kazim, the executive director of Dubai Knowledge Village, a government-run education center, writes that the “more realistic” scenario assumes OPEC’s average oil production will grow annually by 5% to meet a “drastic increase in oil demand from industrializing countries, such as China and India in the next two decades.”

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