OPEC to Raise Shipments 1.2% on Asian Demand, Oil Movements Says

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19 Nov 2010

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will increase crude loadings by 1.2 percent this month on rising exports to Asia, according to tanker- tracker Oil Movements. Shipments will rise to 23.65 million barrels a day in the four weeks to Dec. 4, compared with 23.38 million barrels in the period to Nov. 6, the consultant said today in a report. The data exclude Ecuador and Angola. It’s the sixth consecutive month-on-month increase, according to the weekly reports.
“Everything is going east,” Oil Movements founder Roy Mason said by phone from Halifax, England. “China is obviously a big part of it, but the whole region is going up. Japan is limping but still moving up seasonally.”
China’s oil processing rose to a record last month, according to government statistics published on Nov. 11. OPEC, which supplies about 40 percent of the world’s crude, said in a Nov. 4 report it expects emerging markets to drive oil demand growth in the next five years.
Shipments from Middle Eastern producers, including those from non-OPEC members Oman and Yemen, will rise 1.5 percent to 17.55 million barrels a day in the period, up from 17.29 million in the four weeks to Nov. 6, data from Oil Movements show.
A total of 470.45 million barrels of crude will be on board tankers in the month to Dec. 4, up 3.8 percent on the Nov. 6 figure of 453.22 million barrels, according to Oil Movements.
Oil Movements calculates shipments by keeping a tally of tanker-rental agreements. Its figures exclude crude held on board ships used as floating storage.
OPEC’s members are Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. Iraq is exempt from the quota system.

Source: Bloomberg