<...> We're seeing growth that's anywhere from 1.5 million to 2 million barrels again depending on the forecast that you're looking at. And that's straining the supplies.
As you'll see, basically, OPEC is producing pretty much flat out from the information that we have. And non-OPEC is also producing basically everything they can.
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Courtesy of HighBeam Research:
Title: JOHN FELMY, CHIEF ECONOMIST FOR THE AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE
JOHN FELMY, CHIEF ECONOMIST FOR THE AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE DELIVERS REMARKS AT THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB ABOUT GASOLINE PRICES
Washington Transcript Service
05-04-2005
JOHN FELMY DELIVERS REMARKS AT THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB ABOUT GASOLINE PRICES MAY 4, 2005 SPEAKER: JOHN FELMY, CHIEF ECONOMIST, AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE [*] FELMY: First of all, I'll like to thank you all for having me. It's an honor to be at the Press Club. It's an especial honor to be invited back. You know, you can get an invitation one time and then they say, well, thank you very much but don't bother again. So I appreciate it very much. I appreciate the opportunity to give just a brief presentation on our perspective on what's happening with petroleum markets. The presentation also says natural gas. If anyone is interested in natural gas, it's also an issue of concern to most Americans because of the high cost of natural gas for home heating and electricity generation and so on, but my presentation today will be focusing solely on petroleum.
In a sense, I should retitle this perhaps something under the order of "Groundhog Day," because we continue to revisit high energy prices for consumers as we've had for several years in a row, or perhaps call it a broken record because we've, of course, had several records set in terms of prices, at least in nominal terms, for petroleum products. And I'll go through what they are and so on. So I'll speak briefly and then I'll turn to any questions that you may have. First of all, where were we? We, of course, in 2003 and 2004, experienced high energy prices, high crude oil prices, tight markets, strong demand. Of course the invasion of Iraq had an effect earlier in the year of 2003, but then we had other problems at the end of the year, for example, the blackout that caused several refineries to shut down. And we experienced a couple of different price spikes for gasoline and diesel fuel in that period. We also had some pipeline problems and other things that cropped up that created a real tight market for energy. Rolling into 2004, we experienced much of the same: again, markets that were tight, strong demand, instability of supply, such as in the major producing regions around the world. We also had other problems which basically came together at once both in the markets for crude oil along with the gasoline market itself. So going forward to 2004, it's deja vu all over again. We're experiencing again strong demand worldwide. We're seeing -- depending on the agency -- estimates of continued growth in areas such as China, demand for petroleum as their economies expand and as either their population gets wealthier, buys more autos and consumes more petroleum. <...>