The United States Energy Information Administration (EIA) has estimated that the members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), excluding Iran, earned about $730 billion in net oil export revenues (unadjusted for inflation) in 2014.
This represents an 11 per cent decline from the $824 billion earned in 2013, largely because of the decline in average annual crude oil prices and, to a lesser extent, from decreases in the amount of OPEC net oil exports.
In the OPEC Revenues Fact Sheet released at the weekend, EIA, which provides the official energy information statistics for the United States said OPEC’s 2014 revenue was the lowest earnings for the group since 2010.
“These net export earnings do not include Iran's revenues because of the difficulties associated with estimating Iran's earnings, including the country's inability to receive payments and possible price discounts Iran offers its existing customers. Saudi Arabia earned the largest share of these earnings, $246 billion in 2014, representing approximately one-third of total OPEC oil revenues,” said EIA.
According to the report, Algeria earned $48 billion in 2014 as against $56 billion in 2013; Angola earned $24 billion in 2014, compared to $27 billion in 2013; Iraq earned $87 billion in 2014 and $88 billion in 2013.
In 2013 Kuwait earned $91 billion and $81 billion in 2014; while Nigeria earned $84 billion in 2013 and $77 billion in 2014.
Qatar earned $42 billion in 2013 and $38 billion in 2014; Saudi Arabia earned $282 billion in 2013 and $246 billion in 2014.
In 2014, United Arab Emirate earned $53 billion compared to $58 billion in 2013, while Venezuela earned $68 billion in 2013 and $58 billion in 2014.
For 2015, EIA projects that OPEC net oil export revenues (excluding Iran) could fall further to about $380 billion in 2015 (unadjusted for inflation) as a result of the much lower annual crude oil prices expected in 2015.
EIA expects that OPEC's crude oil production and exports (as a whole) in 2015 will be unchanged from 2014 levels, following OPEC's decision on November 27, 2014 to not change its production targets from previous levels.
EIA noted that consistent with OPEC's announcement, Saudi Arabia has indicated its intention to maintain its export market share rather than cut production to keep prices higher.
According to EIA, in the past, Saudi Arabia often played the role of the swing producer, temporarily cutting its production to offset supply growth elsewhere or weaker global demand, or increasing its output level to make up for a supply shortfall.
On a per capita basis, EIA stated that OPEC (excluding Iran) net oil export earnings are expected to decline by half from about out $2,186 in 2014 to $1,114 in 2015.
According to the report, OPEC net oil export revenues in 2015 are based on projections of global oil prices and OPEC production levels from EIA's March 2015 Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO).
For 2016, OPEC revenues are projected to rebound to $515 billion with the expected rebound in crude oil prices.
For each country, EIA derived net oil exports based on its oil production and consumption estimates from the March 2015 edition of the STEO.
For countries that export several different crude varieties, EIA assumes that the proportion of total net oil exports represented by each variety is equal to the proportion of the total domestic production represented by that variety.
