REUTERS
The price of June futures for North Sea Brent Blend rose to $63.45 per barrel in early trading on Friday, with the price of May futures for WTI crude oil also climbing, to $56.22 per barrel, Russian information agency Prime has reported.
On Thursday, OPEC raised its forecast of 2015 global oil demand by 80,000 barrels per day - to 92.45 million barrels per day, or 1.17 million barrels more than in 2014. The organization continues to exceed the 30-million-barrels-per-day production quota set at a last meeting in November 2014, with the oil output of the OPEC countries in March amounting to 31.488 million barrels per day.
Oil production increased mainly in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, as noted in the report. OPEC oil production in March, excluding the data from Iraq, amounted to 28.14 million barrels per day, which is 658,000 barrels per day more than in the previous month. Total oil output by OPEC countries increased in the reporting month by 1.21 million barrels per day.
"The strategy of OPEC to put pressure on the high-cost producers is working, but the individual members seem to have moved off that focus and are instead producing as much as they can," said Jamie Webster, analyst at IHS in Washington and an OPEC expert.
OPEC's report may reinforce the perception that major producers are staking out market share ahead of a potential rise in Iranian exports following its framework agreement with world powers over its nuclear program.