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OPEC: Oil Prices Will Remain Soft for Years

Oil prices will rebound far more gradually than expected over the next four years as demand remains weak, predicts the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
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Oil prices will rebound far more gradually than expected over the next four years as demand remains weak, predicts the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

OPEC’s latest World Oil Outlook report expects the group’s market share will rise over the next 20 years as chronic low prices force a reduction in output from competing U.S. oil shale operations. The cartel currently pumps about 40% of the world’s petroleum.

Oil prices will rise to only $60 per barrel by 2020 from roughly $40 currently and $115 three years ago, according to the report. Last year the cartel forecast that oil would reach $80 per barrel by 2020.

The cartel blames the slow recovery on global high unemployment, fiscal imbalance, cutbacks in industry spending and other lingering effects of the global financial crisis in 2008.

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