The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has said it is confident that it can supply enough oil to meet market demand this year, according to its latest Oil Market Report
The 12-member group, which accounts for about a third of global oil supply, pumped 31.62 million bpd last month, up 0.32 million bpd from March, with members Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Angola all hiking production.
Non-OPEC oil supply has been forecast to grow by 0.6 mb/d in 2012, following an increase of 0.1 mb/d in 2011, an upward revision of 50 tb/d over the previous report.
"Based on the current forecasts for global oil supply and demand, incremental non-OPEC supply and the increase in OPEC NGLs will satisfy expected growth in world oil demand this year," OPEC said.
"Higher OPEC crude oil production underscores the current trend of plentiful supply in excess of market requirements," the organisation stated.
Rising global supply has contributed to an increase in inventories, preventing prices from moving higher. World oil demand growth now stands at 0.9 mb/d, broadly unchanged from OPEC's previous report.
OPEC said, as the US economy stabilises and non-OPEC demand increases, it expected the world oil demand to grow by 900,000 bpd this year. This represented a minor rise from its previous estimate in April, which stood at 88.64 million bpd.
Oil demand in non-OECD countries has indicated a slight improvement with China's economy projected to grow at 8.2 per cent, while India has been predicted to expand by 6.9 per cent in 2012.
