OPEC members oil output in Feb 2010 hits 14 month high

OPEC oil output has hit a 14 month high in February 2010 led by OPEC member countries Angola and Saudi Arabia, a Reuters survey showed on Friday, further reducing compliance with oil output targets.

Supply from the 11 members of OPEC with output targets, all except Iraq, is averaging 26.80 million barrels per day (bpd), up from a revised 26.69 million bpd in January, according to the survey of oil firms, OPEC officials and analysts.

The survey implies OPEC has made 53 percent of promised supply cutbacks versus 56 percent in January. OPEC, source of more than a third of the world’s oil, meets to set policy on March 17 and the widening gap between its supply target and actual output is likely to be a main topic of debate.

Even so, analysts said the extra barrels were not unwelcome in the market given that oil prices remain within the range favoured by many OPEC members and inventories, which ballooned last year due to falling demand, were coming down. “OPEC’s told us that given the current economic environment, their goal is oil at $70 to $80. As long as prices are in that range, they are happy,” said Mike Wittner, analyst at Societe Generale in London.

“The output creep has been fairly limited in recent months, and with stocks coming down the market is absorbing it.”

Oil inventories in countries of the OECD in December 2009 were little changed on a year earlier in terms of days of future demand, according to the IEA.

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