UAE's quarterly oil output edges down

Abu Dhabi: The UAE's oil output declined marginally in the July-September quarter this year from the quarter earlier, averaging 2.66 million barrels per day (b/d), data recently released by the International Energy Agency (IEA) show.

The Paris-based IEA, which advises 28 industrialised nations on energy policy, said in its latest oil market report the country's average output fell from 2.67 million bpd in the April-June quarter of 2008.

"Increasing production of oil is a long-term goal of the UAE and there's no evidence that they have changed from that position," Dalton Garis, associate professor of Economics at Abu Dhabi's Petroleum Institute told Gulf News.

The UAE's crude oil output, however, remained unchanged in September from the previous month at 2.66 million bpd, the IEA said.

The IEA said the UAE, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, has a sustainable production capacity of 2.85 million bpd and its production capacity at the end of this year is seen at 2.87 million bpd.

Top officials at the UAE's Ministry of Energy and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) were not immediately available to comment on the IEA's oil market report.

Abu Dhabi's production accounts for nearly 94 per cent of the UAE's crude output.