OPEC HAS OFFICIALLY agreed in its ministerial meeting to keep its production quotas steady, as expected, and called for members to improve their compliance with production cuts agreed upon last year.

THE CHIEF ECONOMIST of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said oil producers need to generate an extra crude output capacity of about 45mn bpd in the next 20 years to meet rising demand and offset a decline in major fields.

OPEC HAS OFFICIALLY agreed in its ministerial meeting to keep its production quotas steady, as expected, and called for members to improve their compliance with production cuts agreed upon last year.

BP SAYS GLOBAL oil consumption dropped by 420,000bpd in 2008, the first decline since 1993 and the largest drop recorded since 1982. Worldwide the fall was only 0.6 per cent but in OECD (industrialised) countries it was as much as 3.2 per cent, led by a drop of 6.4 per cent in the USA.