Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept.19
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
OPEC members received about $567 billion in net oil export revenues in 2017, up 29 percent from revenues in 2016, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its Short-Term Energy Outlook.
Increases in both crude oil prices and in net OPEC oil exports drove revenues higher in 2017 and EIA expects that revenues will continue to increase in 2018.
EIA projects that OPEC net oil export revenues will increase to $736 billion in 2018, up 30 percent from 2017. This expected increase follows higher forecast annual crude oil prices in 2018 and more than offsets slightly lower crude oil production from OPEC members in 2018. OPEC revenues will decline to $719 billion in 2019, according to EIA projections, driven mainly by lower crude oil prices, as well as slightly lower OPEC production and exports.
Saudi Arabia receives more oil export revenue than any other member of OPEC. Saudi Arabia’s share of total OPEC net oil export revenues was nearly 30 percent in 2017, and it has remained relatively consistent since at least 1996, ranging between 28 percent and 34 percent.
Iran’s share of OPEC revenues increased to 10 percent in 2017 to its highest level since 1999, recovering from declines from 2012 through 2015 that resulted from sanctions targeting Iran’s oil exports.
Iraq’s share of total OPEC revenues also increased, reaching more than 12 percent in 2017, as the country’s crude oil production and exports continued to rise.
In December 2016, at a meeting of oil producers in Vienna, 11 non-OPEC member countries, including Azerbaijan, agreed to cut oil production by a total of 558,000 barrels a day. The agreement was concluded for the first half of 2017 and was extended until the end of the first quarter of 2018 at a meeting on May 25, 2017.
At the last OPEC meeting in Vienna, the agreement was again extended until the end of 2018. Azerbaijan supported the decision.
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