Brent in longest weekly decline since 2001

Brent headed for a seventh weekly drop on Friday, the longest declining streak since November 2001, as OPEC predicted it will need to supply less crude amid the U.S. shale boom. West Texas Intermediate was little changed in New York.

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries reduced every forecast for demand for its crude through 2035 except next year’s, according to the group’s annual World Oil Outlook, released Friday. Libya plans to resume production from its biggest field that was halted after an attack, an official said.

Oil has slumped into a bear market amid signs that global supply growth is outpacing consumption.

Leading OPEC members have resisted calls to cut output even as a surplus develops amid the shale boom in the US, which is pumping at the fastest pace in more than 30 years.

“Crude oil markets remain stuck in a bear trend and after a period of consolidation the downside gave way as OPEC downgraded the outlook for demand,” Ole Sloth Hansen, an analyst at Saxo Bank A/S, said.

Global demand for crude from OPEC, which is responsible for about 40 percent of the world’s oil supply, may fall to a 14-year low of 28.2 million barrels a day in 2017, its outlook showed. That’s 600,000 a day less than last year’s projection and 800,000 below the amount required this year.

Oil will rebound by the second half of next year as supply and demand don’t justify the market’s collapse and prices are low enough to threaten investment in production, according to Abdalla El-Badri, OPEC secretary general. The 12-member group, scheduled to meet November 27 in Vienna, is “concerned but not panicking,” he said.

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OPEC will probably reduce its output quota if oil slides to $70 a barrel, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing officials it didn’t identify. The group produced 30.974 million barrels a day last month, the most since August 2013, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That exceeded its collective target of 30 million, which was set in January 2012.

In Libya, where output gains have contributed to rising supply from OPEC, the Sharara field will resume production “soon,” said Mansur Abdallah, director of oil movement at the Zawiya refinery and port. It was pumping 290,000 barrels a day before being shut as a precaution when gunmen stormed the facility.

US crude production expanded to 8.97 million barrels a day through October 31, the Energy Information Administration said on Nov. 5. That’s the most in weekly data going back to January 1983, according to the Energy Department’s statistical arm.