UAE oil output 2.3 mln bpd after cut

The United Arab Emirates is pumping around 2.3 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil, down from 2.5 million, after cutting output in line with an OPEC decision and shutting some wells for maintenance, a state oil company official said. « Now we’re producing around 2.3 million bpd, » Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) deputy chief executive Abdulla Al-Suweidi told reporters at an energy conference in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday. « Before Opec, we were producing around 2.5 million. Production is also reduced due to maintenance. » Around 150,000 bpd of oil output was off-line for scheduled work at offshore fields, he said, adding that it would come back by the end of November. The world’s fifth-largest oil exporter planned to cut oil output by 150,000 to 200,000 barrels a day for 40 days in October and November for maintenance, an ADNOC official had told Reuters earlier this year. The Opec member pumped around 2.5 million bpd in October, a Reuters survey showed. [nL3648048] On Monday, UAE Oil Minister Mohammed al-Hamli said the country had kept its pledge to cut oil supplies in line with its Opec commitments, and had started reducing production along with other OPEC members. The country would cut by 134,000 bpd, in line with the group’s decision on October 24. The UAE’s current oil production capacity stood at 2.8 million bpd, Suweidi said. The country would take another 10 years to boost its oil capacity to 3.5 million bpd, Suweidi said. It had previously targeted 3.5 million bpd by 2012. Suweidi gave no reason for the delay but said that most of the 3.5 million bpd production capacity would be on-line by 2015. « We are going ahead with projects as planned, but whenever we can wait we will wait (because of high costs). Our plans are not affected by changes in the oil price. » ADNOC was pumping around 5 to 6 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas, he said. A new project to boost production by one billion cubic feet per day would be completed in 2013 to 2014, he said. The plan is known as the Integrated Gas Development Project. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed at an emergency meeting last month to cut output by 1.5 million bpd, or about 5 per cent, starting from November, to stop a plunge in oil prices that have more than halved since July and lost 32 per cent in October alone. ADNOC notified term customers last week it would cut its contracted volumes for its main export grades by 5 to 15 per cent in December, and cut its Upper Zakum crude by 5 per cent starting from November. Reuters