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Middle East non-OPEC oil output declining – IEA | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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LONDON, (Reuters) – Oil supplies from non-OPEC countries in the Middle East are likely to fall next year and their output volumes will be further eclipsed by the group’s members in the region, the International Energy Agency said on Friday.

The IEA, adviser to the world’s industrialised nations, estimated that collective output from Bahrain, Oman, Syria and Yemen now stands at 1.6 million barrels per day and could slip towards 1.5 million bpd in 2008, after a decade-long plateau from 1995 with output at 2.0 million barrels per day.

“Middle East Gulf OPEC producers will add 1.0 million bpd of crude capacity and a further 1.0 million bpd of gas liquids during 2007 and 2008. But their regional counterparts outside OPEC face dwindling reserves and little prospect of significant long-term growth,” the IEA said in its monthly report. “Unfavourable geology and, in the case of Yemen, a deteriorating investment environment, puts non-OPEC Middle East oil output on a declining track.” “Growing infrastructure attacks by Al-Qaeda also discourage investment,” it said.

Although there will be modest upgrades to oil production facilities in Oman, Bahrain and Syria in coming years, Yemen’s oil output is seen scaling back by 50,000 bpd for the second half of 2007 and by 65,000 bpd for 2008, IEA said.

Yemen’s total oil production is seen averaging 335,000 bpd in 2007 and 315,000 bpd in 2008.

Oman’s Oil Ministry envisages its production reaching 790,000 bpd in 2008 from 740,000 bpd in 2007, and potentially rising to 1.0 million bpd by 2010. But the IEA sees a lower base for 2007 of 710,00 bpd based on January-September data, and less aggressive expansion at one oilfield, giving lower production estimates of 690,000 bpd for 2008.

Bahrain’s liquids output may fall to 165,000 bpd by 2012 and Syrian production looks to dip to 300,000 bpd.