Non-OPEC Producers Sqeeuze More Crude

Taking note from the graph in my last post, it's interesting to scope this WSJ blog: it too has taken notice to the slight increase of non-OPEC crude produciton.

Non-OPEC supply fell about 300,000 barrels a day last year, but the IEA now expects it to increase by about 400,000 barrels this year. Since January, the Paris-based agency has upped its non-OPEC forecast by 940,000 barrels of oil a day. Russia alone accounts for 360,000 of that increase with new fields in Western Siberia entering service.

That could be a sign that marginal producers, aided by higher crude prices and falling production costs, are switching on the taps at wellheads previously shut-in because of poor economics.

Of course Sanford Bernstein has to rain in on the parade:

That has other analysts, like the folks at Sanford Bernstein, a little more gloomy. They expect non-OPEC production this year to total 49.57 (Note: this is total liquids) million barrels a day—or 1.43 million barrels less than the IEA estimates. Next year looks even worse, the analysts say, with non-OPEC production falling more than 1 million barrels to 48.46 million barrels per day.

Considering non-OPEC's track record, the 1 mbpd estimated drop of next year may be over- shooting. Cantarell is running out of gas, and without her help, non-OPEC's production (which lost 300,000 bpd last year) would have been at or near the break-even point last year.

- Brewskie