Oil Prices Hold Steady While Markets Search for Direction

Just over a month had passed since the beginning of the production cut deal when talk of extending the agreement started to intensify. According to Venezuelan government figures, the average price in 2017 for Venezuela’s mix of heavy and medium crude is $45.76.

Birol made reference to 2008, when prices spiked to more than $140 U.S. per barrel, saying that without new investment, the oil market could be tighter in 2022 than it was in 2008.

The volume of daily production last month amounted to some 776,400 barrels, with some 50,000 barrels falling to a share of condensate, a source in the country’s Energy Ministry told Trend.

“In our forecast period, the Americas will continue to dominate growth.The United States is the No. 1 source of extra supply, adding 1.6 million b/d by 2022”.

Echoing the International Energy Agency’s call yesterday, Falih said longer term he was concerned “that misguided projections of peak demand” may discourage trillions of dollars in investments needed to maintain the global energy infrastructure, which would trigger “heightened market volatility including damaging price spikes”.

Instead, Barkindo said he and OPEC viewed the US shale revolution as a welcomed relief due to lost production at the time from Libya, Iran and Nigeria-his home country. Iraq came up in fourth place with 5 million barrels. Kuwait, Nigeria and Brazil round out the top 10 suppliers. The US drillers added seven oil rigs during the week ended 3rd March 2017, taking the total count up to 609, the most since October 2015.

That may happen even as crude stockpiles in the USA and elsewhere climb over the next few years, the IEA said in its “Oil 2017” report.

India will overtake Russian Federation to become the world’s third-largest refiner by 2020. As of 2015, Venezuela had almost 298 billion barrels of proved oil reserves – the largest in the world. Statements from Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s largest member, would be needed to push the price substantially higher, he said.

Oil inventories onshore and offshore are responding to production cuts implemented by OPEC, the secretary-general of the organization, Mohammad Barkindo, said on Sunday. This was because of increase in number of active rigs as production topped 9 million barrels per day for a second week in a row, the most since April 2016.