Short-Term Energy Outlook

Global liquid fuels

Brent crude oil spot prices averaged $66 per barrel (b) in March, up $2/b from February 2019. Brent prices for the first quarter of 2019 averaged $63/b, which is $4/b lower than the same period in 2018. Despite lower crude oil prices than last year, Brent prices in March were $9/b higher than in December 2018, marking the largest December-to-March price increase since December 2011 to March 2012. EIA forecasts Brent spot prices will average $65/b in 2019 and $62/b in 2020, compared with an average of $71/b in 2018. EIA expects that West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil prices will average $8/b lower than Brent prices in the first half of 2019 before the discount gradually falls to $4/b in late-2019 and through 2020.

EIA estimates that U.S. crude oil production averaged 12.1 million barrels per day (b/d) in March, up 0.3 million b/d from the February average. EIA forecasts that U.S. crude oil production will average 12.4 million b/d in 2019 and 13.1 million b/d in 2020, with most of the growth coming from the Permian region of Texas and New Mexico.

Global Petroleum and Other Liquids
	2017	2018	2019projected	2020projected
^aWeighted by oil consumption. ^bForeign currency per U.S. dollar.
Supply & Consumption	(million barrels per day)
Non-OPEC Production	60.76	63.36	65.60	67.75
OPEC Production	37.37	37.30	35.92	35.46
OPEC Crude Oil Portion	32.07	31.96	30.53	30.27
Total World Production	98.13	100.66	101.52	103.21
OECD Commercial Inventory (end-of-year)	2,844	2,862	2,915	2,985
Total OPEC surplus crude oil production capacity	2.03	1.48	1.93	2.12
OECD Consumption	47.23	47.50	47.80	48.01
Non-OECD Consumption	51.23	52.48	53.58	54.82
Total World Consumption	98.46	99.98	101.38	102.83
Primary Assumptions	(percent change from prior year)
World Real Gross Domestic Product^a	3.1	3.1	2.4	3.0
Real U.S. Dollar Exchange Rate^b	-0.8	0.6	0.8	-2.3

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Related Tables
Table 2. Energy Prices	PDF
Table 3b. Non-OPEC Petroleum and Other Liquids Supply	PDF
Table 3c. OPEC Crude Oil (excluding condensates) Supply	PDF
Table 3d. World Petroleum and Other Liquids Consumption	PDF

Related Figures
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil price	XLSX	PNG
World liquid fuels production and consumption balance	XLSX	PNG
Estimated unplanned crude oil production outages among OPEC and non-OPEC producers	XLSX	PNG
World liquid fuels consumption	XLSX	PNG
World liquid fuels consumption growth	XLSX	PNG
World crude oil and liquid fuels production	XLSX	PNG
World liquid fuels production and consumption	XLSX	PNG
OPEC surplus crude oil production capacity	XLSX	PNG
OECD commercial stocks of crude oil and other liquids (days of supply)	XLSX	PNG

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