U.S. to overtake Russia as world's biggest oil producer by 2019 at the latest - IEA

By Osamu Tsukimori

TOKYO (Reuters) - The United States will overtake Russia as the world's biggest oil producer by 2019 at the latest, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday, as the country's shale oil boom continues to upend global markets.

IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in Tokyo the United States would overtake Russia as the biggest crude oil producer "definitely next year", if not this year.

U.S. crude oil output rose above 10 million barrels per day (bpd) late last year for the first time since the 1970s, overtaking top oil exporter Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration said early this month that U.S. output would exceed 11 million bpd by late 2018.

 

That would take it past top producer Russia, which pumps just below 11 million bpd.

Birol separately told Reuters he did not see U.S. oil production peaking before 2020, and that he did not see a decline in the next four to five years.

The soaring U.S. production is upending global oil markets, coming at a time when a group of other major producers around Russia and the Middle East-dominated Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have been voluntarily withholding output in order to prop up prices.

U.S. oil is also increasingly being exported, including to the world's biggest and fastest growing markets in Asia, eating away at OPEC and Russian market share.

Meanwhile, U.S. imports have fallen below 4 million bpd, against a record 12.5 million bpd in 2005, further eroding markets OPEC has been relying on for decades.

(Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Writing by Henning Gloystein; Editing by Tom Hogue)