The Energy Information Administration (EIA) anticipates that production from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will increase to 2.7 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2022. Based on the OPEC+ meeting in January 2022, whereby participating countries agreed to increase production by 0.4 million bpd each month, this forecast places production at an average 28.8 million bpd in 2022.
In the January edition of the organization’s Short-Term Energy Outlook, the EIA posits that despite production underperformance seen in OPEC countries such as Libya – which was producing just short of 1.2 million bpd in December 2021 – these disruptions will be offset by increases in other OPEC countries.
The EIA production increase forecast additionally considered the estimated surplus production capacity among OPEC member countries – which increased to 9-million bpd in mid-2020 due to the significant fall in demand from the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite surplus capacity decline due to global demand gradually recovering, surplus is still estimated at 4.6 million bpd during December 2021.
