According to the Monthly Oil Market Report, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) increased production by 810,000 barrels per day.
The report notes that The OPEC Reference Basket retreated in March by $1.60 to $52.46/b as the market refocused on the oversupply situation as demand remained subdued. ICE Brent and Nymex WTI futures contracts also fell $1.86 and $2.87 to average $56.94/b and $47.85/b, respectively, for the month. The Brent-WTI spread widened to around $9/b.
The organisation says product markets remained healthy in the Atlantic Basin in March. Higher gasoline demand ahead of the driving season provided support amid tight sentiment fuelled by the heavy maintenance season and some outages in the US. Meanwhile, the Asian market exhibited a positive performance supported by the increasing light and middle distillates demand in several countries in the region.
OPEC stated that it will continue increasing output, despite an oversupply, projecting an increased demand of 80,000 barrels per day higher for this year than anticipated.
For the month of March, OPEC produced an average of about 30.79 million barrels per day, representing an increase of 810,000 barrels per day.
OPEC explained: “Crude oil output increased mostly from Saudi Arabia and Iraq, while Libya saw a return of about 165, 000 barrels per day from shut-in wells in active oil fields.”
In 2015, non-OPEC oil supply is now projected to grow by 0.68 mb/d, following a downward revision of 165 tb/d compared to the previous assessment. US tight oil and Canadian oil sands output are expected to see lower growth following the recent strong declines in rig counts. OPEC NGLs are expected to grow by 0.19 mb/d in 2015, following growth of 0.18 mb/d last year. In March, OPEC crude production increased by 0.81 mb/d to average 30.79 mb/d, according to secondary sources.
The mission of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is to coordinate and unify the petroleum policies of its Member Countries and ensure the stabilization of oil markets in order to secure an efficient, economic and regular supply of petroleum to consumers, a steady income to producers and a fair return on capital for those investing in the petroleum industry.
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