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A guest post by D Coyne
The OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) for February 2024 was published recently. The last month reported in most of the OPEC charts that follow is January 2024 and output reported for OPEC nations is crude oil output in thousands of barrels per day (kb/d). In the OPEC charts that follow, the blue line with markers is monthly output and the thin red line is the centered twelve-month average (CTMA) output.
Preliminary data indicates that global liquids production in January 2024 decreased by 0.6 Mb/d compared with the previous month to average 101.8 Mb/d. The estimate for December 2023 was revised higher by 1.5 Mb/d to 102.4 Mb/d this month from last month’s preliminary estimate of 100.9 Mb/d. Liquids supply was 2.8 Mb/d higher than 23 months earlier and OPEC crude output was 1.0 Mb/d less than 23 months earlier.
Preliminary December 2023 data shows total OECD commercial oil stocks down by 22.6 Mb from the November level. At 2767 Mb, they were 14 Mb lower than the same time one year ago, 80 Mb lower than the latest five-year average and 159 Mb below the 2015–2019 average.
Demand for OPEC crude in 2024 and 2025 has been revised lower this month by 0.11 Mb/d compared to last month’s estimates. My estimate for OPEC sustainable output is about 28.41 Mb/d, which suggests a shortage of crude in 2025, if the OPEC estimates for World Demand and non-OPEC supply are correct. Note that the EIA Short Term Energy Outlook estimate for World liquids demand in 2025 is 103.71 Mb/d, 1.54 Mb/d less than the OPEC MOMR estimate. The EIA STEO estimates that only 27.35 Mb/d of OPEC crude will be needed in 2025 to balance World liquids supply and demand, 1.5 Mb/d lower than the OPEC MOMR estimate.
OPEC expects slower US tight oil growth in 2024 and 2025 than in 2023, and the 2024 and 2025 estimates have been revised slightly lower than last month (0.03 Mb/d in 2024 and 0.04 Mb/d in 2025).
Editor’s Note: The summary bullets for this article were chosen by Seeking Alpha editors.
