“The next stage is an exceptional stage in the oil industry, and the geopolitics will have a more important factor in the markets in the coming period,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency.
He added that the United States continues to expand Oil Shale production and to become an oil exporter from 2021.
Thanks to shale oil, the United States, which was traditionally oil-importing country, will become one of its major producers in the world. This new situation will disrupt world oil markets, causing markets oversupply, and consequently the price of crude oil will fall.
By 2024, the United States will account for 70% of the world’s oil production growth, and output from outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will rise by 6.1 million b/d to 68.7 million b/d, he said. On the other hand, a decrease in OPEC production is expected between 2019 and 2020 before it rises moderately to 32 million b/d in 2024.
On the other hand, as Saudi Arabia seeks to balance the oversupplied market, it plans to cut its crude exports in April 2019 to less than 7 million bpd and to keep its production at less than 10 million b/d.