Opec believes it will need to produce far less oil over the next 12 years than does the US, creating uncertainty over whether the oil cartel’s members will invest enough to boost production capacity to stop oil prices rising.

The US Energy Information Agency on Wednesday predicted the world would need more than 37m barrels of oil a day from Opec by 2010 and 44.4m b/d in 2020.

But in a concurrent report, Opec said new supply from other regions and biofuels would reduce the need for its oil from 32m b/d today, to 31m b/d in 2012 before it rose again, but only to 35.5m b/d in 2020 – more than 9m b/d less than the EIA expects. ... Read full article