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By Grant

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will cut crude exports by 2.6 percent as demand during the northern hemisphere winter begins to slacken, according to tanker tracker Oil Movements.

The group that supplies about 40 percent of the world’s oil will export 24.1 million barrels a day in the four weeks to Jan. 5, down 640,000 barrels a day from the previous period, the researcher said in an e-mailed report today. The figures exclude Angola and Ecuador.

“There is a dip between the two halves of winter,” Roy Mason, the company’s founder Mason said by phone from Halifax, England. “We’re in that dip now. There’s nothing unusual about that but the volumes on the downside have been pretty severe, having gone up an unusual amount earlier.”

Brent crude has fallen 14 percent from its March peak to about $110 a barrel today on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London.

Middle East shipments will slide 3.5 percent to 17.75 million barrels a day in the period, compared with 18.4 million in the four weeks to Dec. 8, according to the report. That figure includes non-OPEC members Oman and Yemen.

Crude on board tankers will average 483.74 million barrels, down 4.9 percent on the previous period, the data show. Oil Movements calculates the volumes by tallying tanker bookings. Its figures exclude crude held on vessels for storage.

OPEC comprises Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

Oil Movements said its next report will be published on Jan. 3.

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To contact the reporter on this story: Grant Smith in London at gsmith52@bloomberg.net

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