Oil price fall tips OPEC current account into deficit in 2015, first since 1998

Published 2016-06-22, 11:03 a/m
© Reuters.  Oil price fall tips OPEC current account into deficit in 2015, first since 1998
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* OPEC oil export revenues fall 46 percent in 2015
* Crude exports by OPEC rise only "slightly"
* Group's proven oil reserves rise 0.1 pct in 2015

By Alex Lawler
LONDON, June 22 (Reuters) - OPEC's 2015 oil export revenues
slumped 46 percent to a 10-year low, the group said in a report
published on Wednesday, underlining the impact on producers'
income from a collapse in prices.
Oil prices at about $50 a barrel LCOc1 are half their
level in mid-2014, pressured by oversupply. OPEC's decision in
November 2014 to not cut supply, hoping a drop in prices would
curb supply from competitors, deepened the decline.
With income falling, the 13 members of the Organization of
the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) posted a combined
current account deficit of $99.60 billion in 2015, compared with
a surplus of $238.10 billion in 2014.
They earned $518.2 billion from petroleum exports last year,
OPEC said in its Annual Statistical Bulletin, the lowest level
since 2005.
"The last time OPEC recorded a current account deficit was
in 1998," the report said. Prices sank to $10 that year because
of a global surplus.
OPEC's crude oil exports rose only "slightly" last year to
23.60 million barrels per day (bpd), up 1.7 percent from 23.20
million bpd the previous year, the report said.
The OPEC publication doesn't forecast 2016 income. But a
report earlier this month from the U.S. Energy Information
Administration said 2016 oil export revenues will probably fall
15 percent before rising in 2017.
OPEC's proven crude oil reserves rose by 0.1 percent last
year and it maintained its share of 81.2 percent of the world
total, the OPEC report said.

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