Brazil has been touted by the IEA and other analysts as likely to provide a key boost to this year’s non-Opec crude output. But with data in for the first seven months of 2018, the country’s output, at 2.58mn b/d, is actually down on the 2017 average of 2.62mn b/d (and 2.63mn b/d for January-July 2017). With the latest data showing 2.58mn b/d for July, there is little sign of an uptick.
At the start of 2018 the IEA was projecting that Brazil output would grow by 170,000 b/d this year (MEES, 2 February), but extended maintenance outages and steeper than expected decline at producing fields have led it to a series of downgrades. It now projects growth of just 50,000 b/d to 2.79mn b/d for 2018, and even this is based on factoring in a July estimate of 2.78mn b/d, some 200,000 b/d above the actual figure. (CONTINUED - 434 WORDS)
