Well, Whaddya Know? Western Hemisphere Oil Production Slump May Boost ME Dependence!

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Oil production problems throughout North and South America will hurt US efforts to cut back on Middle Eastern crude imports, energy experts are saying. Steep oil field decline rates in Mexico and Venezuela and delays and outages in offshore US and Canadian areas should lower output from the region this year, countering earlier expectations of a rise.

"In aggregate, North and South American oil supply looks set to fall by close to 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) for 2007, reversing the 90,000 bpd gain posted in 2006," Fimat analyst Antoine Halff said in a research note.

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A faster-than-expected drop in output from Mexico's aging Cantarell area, the world's largest offshore field, is leading regional declines. The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts the field, which pumped 1.49 million bpd of oil in December compared with 1.98 million bpd in January 2006, should decline by roughly 200,000 bpd this year.

Supplies from Opec-member Venezuela are also expected to fall as the government of President Hugo Chavez diverts oil profits away from exploration and production and into social programmes. Venezuelan output, which topped three million bpd in 2001, should drop 90,000 bpd to around 2.44 million bpd this year, Energy Security Analysis Inc. (ESAI) forecast. Despite expectations of a long-term increase in output from heavy oil sands in Alberta, Lehman Brothers is revising Canadian production down by 20,000 bpd this year because of problems at the offshore Hibernia field.

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http://www.timesofmalta.com/core/article.php?id=251639