Demand For OPEC Oil To Increase This Year -- OPEC

Updates

February 13, 2013: one has to chuckle. Less than 24 hours after posting this original post, a reader coincidentally sends me another post talking about cold weather, this time in Japan: cold water probably pulled Japan out of a recession.

Domestic same-store sales at Uniqlo, Japan’s largest clothing retailer, rose 13.7 percent in November and 4.5 percent in December as lower temperatures boosted demand. Tokyo temperatures averaged below the 30-year median on 26 of 30 days in November and 24 of 31 days in December, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Original Post

Bloomberg is reporting:

OPEC raised forecasts for the amount of crude it will need to supply this year because of stronger fuel demand in emerging economies.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will have to provide an average of 29.8 million barrels a day in 2013, or 100,000 a day more than it estimated a month ago. The producer group’s output in January was 500,000 barrels a day larger than this, at 30.3 million, according to OPEC’s monthly market report published today. 

How come? What changed:

• signs of global recovery
• colder weather at the beginning of this year

At the linked article:

“Given some signs of recovery in the global economy and colder weather at the start of this year, the forecast for world oil demand growth in 2013 has also been revised up,” OPEC’s Vienna-based secretariat said. “The bulk of the growth is seen coming from China.” 

OPEC must be using different thermometers than the University of Alabama. The latter says January was the warmest month in 35 years. Maybe in Mobile.