The shale oil boom will confirm the USA as the world’s largest oil producer next year, the International Energy Agency has confirmed – as global oil supplies suffered a sharp drop.
Ongoing production disruption in Iraq and Libya saw supplies from the OPEC countries drop dramatically, with a loss of around 645,000 barrels of oil per day, despite Saudi output in creasing for a third consecutive month.
The figures, in the western energy industry watchdog’s annual report, saw the biggest drop in OPEC crude supplies in nearly two years, with output falling below 30 million barrels a day. More than a third of that output was produce by Saudi Arabia as it continues to increase production in the Middle East.
Industrial and civil unrest in Libya has taken its toll on the industry, with German producer Wintershall the latest operator to be hit by strikes at one of the country’s export terminals.
The company, which until the civil war produced three-quarters of its output from the country, said third quarter production had fallen to 73,000 bod against 80,000 a year ago and 100,000 before the war.
“We would like to regain the 100,000 bpd as soon as possible but when this will be the case we can’t say at the moment,” the company said in a statement.
“At the moment, the safety situation, and resulting concern about this, are delaying the return of necessary expertise and services.”
The IEA report found global oil output dropped by 625,000 barrels a day to 91.12million bod, but added it expected supply from non-OPEC countries to increase to 1.7million barrels a day in 2014 from its 1.1million bod average this year in response to the fall from OPEC producers.
And against that backdrop, the company said the shale gas and oil boom in the USA will finally see it become the world’s largest producer of oil.
“The United States’ place in the driver’s seat of growth is also a throwback to decades past,” the IEA said.
“With output of more than 10 million barrels per day for the last two quarters, its highest in decades, the nation is set to become the largest non-OPEC liquids producer by the second quarter of 2014, overtaking Russia.”
That figure does not count biofuel, the report noted.
The figure comes just days after new figures from the US government shows the country is now no longer the world’s biggest oil importer, with domestic production allowing China to overtake it.
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