Friday, November 9, 2012

OPEC: Oil up slightly in October


The OPEC monthly oil market report is out and provides our first preliminary look at October liquid fuel production.  They show it as being up about 1mbd from a depressed September value.  Overall, supply continues to look flat across 2012 - there is no more oil being supplied in October than there was in January.  So the global economy has been growing not by using more oil, but rather by becoming more efficient with the oil it has (driven by the effects of ongoing high prices).

I'll post more graphs when the IEA comes out with their data point.

2 comments:

Blue Peter said...

"So the global economy has been growing not by using more oil, but rather by becoming more efficient with the oil it has (driven by the effects of ongoing high prices)."

Have you ruled out mistaking inflation for growth?

Peter.

Stuart Staniford said...

Peter - you can see the IMF's latest estimates in Fig 1-7 of http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2012/02/pdf/text.pdf

little doubt that the global economy has been growing, albeit slowly