Baku, Azerbaijan, July 12
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
The oil industry has been adjusting and some balance is coming back into the market, particularly in this past year with the unprecedented agreement between OPEC and non-OPEC producers, said BP CEO Bob Dudley.
He made the remarks during the 22nd World Petroleum Congress in Istanbul, Turkey.
“We expect to see global energy demand rise by around a third over the next couple of decades. That increase in demand has been anticipated for many years,” said Dudley.
What’s new is the increase in supply, he said, adding that abundant supply is now a fact of life - with the shale revolution and advances in technologies such as enhanced oil recovery.
“We have half a century’s worth of oil and gas in our proved reserves alone. And there is much more out there. China, Argentina and Algeria are each estimated by some to contain as much shale as the US, for example,” noted the BP CEO.
He pointed out that the debate over so-called ‘peak oil’ has peaked some time ago.
“Unlocking of so much new resource has changed the economics of the industry. BP’s projections - and others - suggest that while the global car fleet will double over the next 20 years, growth in oil demand will only go up by about a fifth - still increasing, but at a slower rate,” added Dudley.
On May 25, OPEC member countries and non-OPEC parties, Azerbaijan, Kingdom of Bahrain, Brunei Darussalam, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Sultanate of Oman, the Russian Federation, Republic of Sudan, and the Republic of South Sudan agreed to extend the production adjustments for a further period of nine months, with effect from July 1, 2017.
The reductions will be on the same terms as those agreed in November.
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