OREANDA-NEWS. Opec made little change to its 2016 global supply and demand forecasts in its May Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR), less than three weeks before the group's biannual meeting in Vienna, Austria, and only days after its largest member, Saudi Arabia, replaced its long-serving oil minister Ali Naimi.

Opec expects 2016 world oil demand to grow by 1.2mn b/d to 94.18mn b/d, unchanged from April's report. It said downwards revisions to demand forecasts in Latin America and China offset upwards revisions for some other Asia-Pacific countries. The IEA anticipates 2016 global oil demand to grow by 1.2mn b/d to 95.9mn b/d, and sees room for an upwards revision.

Opec expects non-Opec supply to decrease by 740,000 b/d this year, to 56.4mn b/d, little changed from last month's report and compared with the IEA's forecast of a 800,000 b/d fall to 56.8mn b/d. Opec expects output to fall in the US, UK, China, Mexico, Kazakhstan and Colombia, while it anticipates growth in Canada, Brazil, Russia and Malaysia.

"It is widely recognised that an adequate return on investment is needed to maintain production levels, as well as to allow for the growth necessary to meet future requirements in a timely fashion," the report says. "Therefore, a return to balance is a shared interest among consumers and producers alike."

Oil prices have increased in recent weeks, but Opec said that "fundamentally, oversupply still persists, and oil output remains high".

The report leaves its call on Opec crude in 2016 unchanged at 31.5mn b/d. The IEA puts it at 32.2mn b/d.

Argus puts Opec's April output at 32.59mn b/d. Using data submitted to the Opec secretariat by member governments — and the Argus numbers of 340,000 b/d for Libya and 3.4mn b/d for Iran, which did not provide figures for the Opec report — the group's production in April stood at about 33.31mn b/d, compared with 33.36mn b/d in March.