Faculty of Economic Sciences

Asia whose growing share in world output is also raising the oil demand of the world economy as a whole. Furthermore, a thin margin of spare oil production capacity is expected to continue into 2007 despite new supplies from both non-OPEC and OPEC countries, as existing production comes close to its short-term capacity while some existing fields, e.g. the North Sea, suffer from declining yields. Rising crude oil stocks, which are close to five- year highs, will do little to dampen the oil price given the lack of spare capacity in oil production. Capacity utilisation in global...