The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Wednesday slightly lowered its outlook for this year's oil demand, while its total production fell by 280,000 barrels per day in March, compared to the previous month, DPA reported.
The group's latest monthly market report estimates that the world will need 85.21 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in 2010, 30,000 barrels less than in the previous report. One barrel equals 159 litres.
The downward revision was due to a forecast for Western Europe that was 220,000 bpd below the one issued last month, based on expected lower energy consumption
OPEC kept its expectations stable or even increased them for all other world regions.
The 12 countries of the Vienna-based organization pumped 29.26 million bpd in March, the first decline in 12 months.
Iraq throttled its production by 110 million bpd, while Algeria, Angola, Iran and Libya reduced output to a lesser degree.
All other OPEC members increased the flow of crude, with Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria seeing the biggest gains.
Despite the overall lower trend, OPEC was still producing well above its target ceiling of 24.85 million bpd, which excludes Iraq's output.
At its latest meeting in March, the group decided to maintain this limit but asked members to comply better with their quotas.
While the cartel supplied less, the first-quarter estimate for non-OPEC producers was raised by 270,000 bpd to 51.74 million bpd.
OPEC's basket price settled lower at 81.52 dollars per barrel on Tuesday, more than 37 dollars higher than one year ago.