AKIPRESS.COM - OPEC said Saudi Arabia led declines in the group’s oil output last month, weeks before its 12 members meet to decide whether to trim a global supply glut that drove crude prices into a bear market, reports Bloomberg.

Saudi Arabia’s production fell 69,900 barrels a day to a seven-month low of 9.603 million, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said in a monthly report. The data are based on estimates from sources including analysts and media organizations.

OPEC’s members pumped 30.253 million barrels a day, a decrease of 226,400 barrels, the largest since March. There are signs of global economic recovery, it said.

Brent crude futures, used to price more than half the world’s oil, traded near a four-year low today on speculation that OPEC’s biggest members will refrain from paring output to drain a global surplus.

Manufacturing indicators from the U.S., Japan, China and Germany show that the economic recovery is progressing, according to the organization.

Saudi Arabia’s own submission showed a decrease of 13,700 barrels daily to 9.69 million barrels. The group didn’t publish an estimate for its total output in October based on countries’ own submissions because Venezuela didn’t provide one.

The organization’s forecasts for global demand, and the amount of crude it will need to supply this year and next, were unchanged from its last monthly report. World oil consumption will increase by 1.19 million barrels a day in 2015 to 92.38 million a day, it said.

OPEC’s production in October, while in line with the average amount the group considers needed in the fourth quarter, is about 1.8 million barrels a day higher than the 28.4 million it expects will be required in the first quarter of next year. The world will need an average 29.2 million barrels a day from the group in 2015, it said.