Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 21 /Trend, A.Badalova/
In the short term perspective global oil supply will be more than enough to meet rising demand, OPEC Secretary General Abdalla El-Badri believes.
"Given that the world demand growth is forecasted to increase by 800,000 barrels a day this year and 1 million barrels a day in 2014, there is clearly enough supply to meet rising demand," El-Badri said at Oman Energy Forum 2013 on Monday. The speech of El-Badri was published on OPEC's official website.
"There has been, and there remains, more than enough supply to meet demand. We also see this as the case for the rest of 2013 and into 2014," El-Badri added.
In terms of OPEC crude production, OPEC Secretary General stressed that it is currently just over 30 million barrels a day.
"The Organization is making sure its consumer's needs are met," he said. "At the same time, spare capacity remains at comfortable levels. And we see these comfortable levels remaining for the foreseeable future," he added.
OPEC Secretary General said that non-OPEC supply is expected to rise by 1.1 million barrels a day in 2013, and 1.2 million barrels a day in 2014.
According to El-Badri, over the past few years, oil market has not been directed solely by the fundamentals of supply, demand and stocks, as it has been in the past.
"There are many other factors at play, such as the role of oil as an asset class, speculation, the futures market and spot prices, and of course the current economic environment," he said.
El-Badri stressed that in 2013, there was a number of uncertainties and challenges, including the future of the global economy, geopolitical events and their potential and actual implications on the oil market, as well as some supply issues, particularly in the North Africa and the Middle East.
"Despite these issues and others, however, there has been no shortage of oil in the market. There has been enough supply to meet demand. And we believe market fundamentals remain balanced today," El-Badri said.
According to El-Badri, the outlook for 2014 is better than for 2013. In OPEC's Monthly Oil Market Report we see global GDP of 2.9 per cent in 2013, but this increases to 3.5 per cent the following year, he stressed.
Talking about the oil prices, OPEC Secretary General mentioned that this year they move in the $100-$110 range, which according to him is acceptable to producers and consumers alike.
"It is important that prices do not witness extremes - neither too high nor too low," El-Badri said.