THE Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) now sees oil prices rising more slowly over the next few years than it had expected, as the oversupply of crude takes longer to work off.

    The OPEC said yesterday it expects crude will rise US$5 a year to US$60 per barrel by 2020. A year ago, the OPEC forecast that oil would hit US$80 by 2020.

    Brent crude, used to price international oils, fell 11 U.S. cents to US$46.04 a barrel Tuesday.

    The OPEC cited many factors that could limit energy demand, from slower growth in China to higher household debt. The cartel expects global economic growth of 3.4 percent over six years, down from a 3.6 percent prediction a year ago.

    At the same time, the OPEC said that the oil industry was surprised by the ability of producers in North America to keep pumping even as prices fell, maintaining crude supplies high.

    The forecast was contained in the OPEC’s annual oil outlook and came just three weeks before its oil ministers are scheduled to meet to complete a September agreement on slightly reducing production to drive up prices.

    It won’t be easy for the OPEC to nail down a price-boosting deal.

    OPEC nations have been pumping record amounts of crude this fall even though prices are less than half what they were in mid-2014. Iran, Libya and Nigeria have reportedly argued to be exempted from production cuts, which could put pressure on Saudi Arabia to shoulder more of the reduction. And it’s unclear whether any OPEC pullback might be offset by production from countries outside the cartel.

    Separately, the U.S. Government updated its short-term outlook and said that the recent decline in domestic oil production may not be as severe as expected just a month ago.

    The Energy Department raised its forecast of U.S. production for both this year and 2017, as drillers respond to higher crude prices. Still, output won’t match 2015, which was the biggest year for U.S. production since 1972.

    The Energy Department predicted that domestic production will top 8.7 million barrels per day next year. That’s 140,000 more barrels per day than the department estimated just a month ago. Forecasters also raised their estimate of 2016 daily oil production by 110,000 barrels to more than 8.8 million barrels.

    That’s still below 2015’s output that hit 9.4 million barrels per day. (SD-Agencies)