OPEC, which pumps about 40 percent of the world's oil, and other producers will struggle to add new production capacity because of a shortage of rigs and the required skilled labor, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said.
"I am afraid that in the next two or three years capacity will only increase at the same pace as demand, with no increase in spare capacity," Claude Mandil said yesterday at the Organization of APEC energy conference in the Jordanian capital of Amman.
Mandil said new capacity "will not come very quickly because there are a lot of bottlenecks."
Qatar's oil minister said OPEC is unlikely to change output quotas when the group meets in Caracas in two weeks time as global markets are well supplied.
"If the price will continue as it is, I think our decision will be a roll over," Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah said in an interview in Amman.
The group's next policy-setting meeting is on June 1 in Caracas.
Crude oil in New York closed at a record US$75.17 a barrel on April 21, amid concern supplies out of Iran may be disrupted over its nuclear program standoff with the US. The price closed at US$72.04 a barrel on Friday.
OPEC has kept its official quotas unchanged at 28 million barrels a day for 10 months as some members including Saudi Arabia pump more than their allotment to make up for members such as Venezuela and Nigeria, which aren't meeting their share.
Saudi Arabia's Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said OPEC is doing enough to add new oil capacity to meet future demand growth, though he warned fellow producers against going to far due to the unpredictable nature of economic growth.
The kingdom, which plans to raise its output capacity by 1.2 million barrels a day to 12.5 million barrels a day by 2009, is ahead of schedule and under budget with its expansion program, the Saudi oil minister told reporters at the oil conference in Amman.
"Global economic growth may not continue at this high level for many years," al-Naimi said in a speech.
"We must be cautious and not take forecasts and expectations as solid cases, such as the continuation of strong oil demand growth, and the continuation of today's prices or their increase," he said.
The IEA lowered its estimate for crude demand by 200,000 barrels a day to 84.83 million barrels a day, reducing this year's growth to 1.5 percent.
In the US, while the economy grew at its fastest pace in two-and-a-half years during the first quarter, "this was not reflected in oil product demand growth," which fell 1.4 percent versus the year-earlier quarter in the US, the report said.
OPEC's crude production rose by 170,000 barrels a day last month to 30.04 million barrels a day, according to IEA estimates. Oil flows rose in Iraq, Nigeria, Venezuela and Libya.
Saudi's al-Naimi said world oil demand is growing by "about 4 percent a year," and added, that it may reach "100 million barrels a day by 2015."
However, the minister said producers need to be "cautious" of demand projections.
INVENTORY DOUBLED: Key parts have backed up in warehouses, halting notebook production, as Acer’s CEO said that a gradual reopening would not solve the problem PC vendor Acer Inc (宏碁) yesterday said that lockdowns in China to control COVID-19 upended key component supply and disrupted PC production, although chip shortages have been improving. While chip supply constraints largely eased in the first quarter, the company faces uneven supplies of key components due to COVID-19 restrictions in China, Acer chairman and CEO Jason Chen (陳俊聖) told an online news conference. “Semiconductor shortage was the biggest problem in the first half of last year,” Chen said. “Now, we are beset by a supply chain issue caused by China's lockdowns.” With key components unable to be delivered and backing up in
MORE THAN BUZZ: The chip designer said it has received numerous orders from automakers to supply 5G modem chips, as it works to expand beyond smartphones MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it would ship the first 5G chips for vehicles to customers in the Asia-Pacific region by the end of the year, as it moves to expand the reach of its 5G chips beyond smartphones. The Hsinchu-based chip designer said it has been developing 5G chips for connected vehicles over the past few years, targeting applications such as telematics and in-vehicle information systems. “We are seeing demand for 5G technology from numerous makers of connected cars, including electric vehicle makers. We have obtained numerous orders from automakers to supply 5G modem chips with highly integrated features,” J.C. Hsu
E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技) yesterday said it would further expand capacity to cope with robust demand for e-paper displays used in e-readers, e-notes and electronic shelf labels, as the COVID-19 pandemic and rising inflation have not dampened consumer demand. Although rising inflation is weakening companies’ purchasing power, E Ink said that its customers have not scaled down orders for e-paper displays used in e-readers. “Reading is still the most affordable leisure activity that people have,” E Ink CEO Johnson Lee (李政昊) told an online investors’ conference in Taipei. As e-books are less expensive than paper books, “we have so far not seen
Covestro Taiwan Ltd (台灣科思創) yesterday launched a new research and development center that is to specialize in resin synthesis and fiberoptic coating after its parent company, Covestro AG, acquired a resins business from Royal DSM, it said. The German company in September 2020 agreed to buy the resins and functional materials business from Royal DSM for about 1.61 billion euros (US$1.69 billion), corporate data showed. The Dutch company’s local units, such as Covestro Resins (ROA) Ltd (帝昇) and Covestro Resins (Taiwan) Ltd (新力美), are next month to be integrated into Covestro Taiwan Ltd, with their employees continuing resins development, Covestro Taiwan said. The
RSS