OPEC's crude oil production dropped by more than 500,000 bpd month on month in March, to the lowest since February 2015, as Saudi Arabia followed through its commitment to cut deeper than pledged and Venezuela's crisis, sanctions, and blackouts hit its supply harder than in previous months.
In its closely-watched Monthly Oil Market Report, OPEC said on Wednesday that its secondary sources' estimates point to total OPEC-14 crude oil production averaging 30.02 million bpd in March, down by 534,000 bpd from February, and the lowest since the February 2015 production of below 30 million bpd.
OPEC's de facto leader and largest producer Saudi Arabia followed through its commitment from February to cut deeper and pump well below 10 million bpd. Saudi Arabia's crude oil production dropped by a massive 324,000 bpd from February to stand at 9.794 million bpd in March-just as Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih had said the Kingdom would do and pump around 9.8 million bpd in March, some 500,000 bpd below the 10.311-million-bpd commitment in the OPEC+ deal.
An OPEC member exempt from these production cuts, Venezuela, contributed inadvertently to the cartel's mission to reduce global oil supply. Venezuela's crude oil production plunged by 289,000 bpd to below 1 million bpd-to 732,000 bpd in March, according to OPEC's secondary sources.
Venezuela's oil industry suffered from U.S. sanctions, continued economic crisis, and massive blackouts last month. Interestingly, Venezuela also self-reported to OPEC a huge drop in its production to below 1 million bpd-not the typical flattish output compared to the previous month as it has been doing lately. Based on direct communication from members, Venezuela's production plunged by 472,000 bpd from February to 960,000 bpd in March, OPEC's report showed. Related: Oil & Gas Discoveries On The Rise As Oil Majors Dive In
Elsewhere, the cartel's second-largest producer Iraq also slashed production considerably, by 126,000 bpd to 4.522 million bpd according to OPEC's secondary sources-nearly falling in line with its OPEC+ quota of 4.512 million bpd.
Production in Iran, under U.S. sanctions and exempted from OPEC's cuts, dropped by 28,000 bpd to 2.698 million bpd, while the third member exempted from the deal, Libya, saw its production rise by 196,000 bpd to 1.098 million bpd in March after its biggest oil field, Sharara, returned to operations last month.
Projecting global oil demand in this month's report, OPEC revised down its oil demand growth estimate to around 1.21 million bpd from 1.24 million bpd in last month's report, saying that "this is due to slower-than-expected economic activity compared with the expectations of a month earlier."
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Comments
Oil prices are getting high on a cocktail of bullish influences such as robust fundamentals, tightening global oil market, positive noises from Sino-U.S. trade talks, positive macroeconomic data from China’s economy, accelerating Chinese crude oil imports and a strict adherence to OPEC+ cuts.
That is why oil prices brushed aside the US Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) announcement of a 7-million barrel build in crude oil inventories and continued their surge.
Mamdouh G Salameh
International Oil Economist
Visiting Professor of Energy Economics at ESCP Europe Business School, London