Press Releases
OAPEC Secretary General’s 40th Annual Report 2013
Kuwait 01/07/2014
OAPEC has released the Secretary General’s 40th Annual Report for the year 2013. The report analyzes in depth the various Arab and international developments in the petroleum industry including exploration, refining, petrochemicals, natural gas, and the most significant Arab and international petroleum projects. The report also tackles oil, natural gas and energy supplies worldwide and their impact on oil demand, and petroleum exports revenues and their role in supporting economic development.
The report introduces the Organization departments’ activities, decisions and recommendations taken by OAPEC Ministerial Council and Executive Bureau. It also covers OAPEC’s activities on the level of international and Arab relations, seminars and conferences. It gives an overview of the organization’s administrative issues, summaries of the studies and research works done by the Arab Centre for Energy Studies (constituting of Technical and Economic Affairs Departments), databank developments, OAPEC joint ventures’ financial status and their projects in the petroleum market.
The report also highlights OAPEC member countries’ efforts to develop their petroleum industries on the one hand, and reduce the impact of international economic developments on them on the other hand. It gives a glimpse about OAPEC’s efforts on strengthening relations with international organizations, authorities, and centers relevant to energy.
The report shows that the international oil market has witnessed increasing stability in 2013 as a result of the global economic recovery that has been improving in moderate but steady pace and rates throughout the year. The US economy has been the main drive for the global recovery at a time when the major emerging economies have been witnessing a slowdown in growth.
Oil demand has hit record numbers in 2013 as demand reached 89.9m b/d and supplies reached 90.1n b/d. However, although demand has increased slightly more than the previous year, global oil prices, for the first time since 2009, have slightly dropped to reach $105.9 per barrel for OPEC basket in light of abundant supplies resulting mainly from the huge non-OPEC supplies, especially from North American countries (about 1.2m b/d). However, OPEC supplies dropped to 96m b/d for the first time since 2009.
The report mentioned that developing the Arab petroleum industry and improving its economic revenues would form a backbone to support efforts for integration among different other national industries. They would also help in achieving economic and social stability on local, regional and international levels as petroleum would remain one of the main drivers of global economy for long decades.