OPEC needs to boost 2nd-half output: EIA

By Chris Baltimore

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - OPEC will need to boost its output in the second half of 2007 to meet winter heating demand, but it's too late for the producers' group to have much impact on U.S. oil supplies this summer, the U.S. government's top energy forecaster told Reuters on Monday.

"We see a need for OPEC to produce more crude in the second half of 2007 than they produced in the first half," due to projected demand increases, Guy Caruso, head of the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), told the Reuters Energy Summit.

OPEC, source of about a third of world oil, appears unlikely to boost its output before its regular meeting in September.

Even if OPEC were to act soon, crude oil from big producers like Saudi Arabia is at least a 45-day tanker journey away from the U.S. Gulf Coast, Caruso said.

"Summer supplies of crude in terms of the long-haul suppliers, that's pretty much in train now," he said.

OPEC member Nigeria tops EIA's list of potential near-term disruption hot spots after Umaru Yar'Adua took office as president last week, he said

"Immediately, it's Nigeria," he said. "I'd have to put that at the top of my list, mainly because we don't know how the new government is going to settle in, whether the governance will improve."

Output disruptions in Nigeria have tightened supplies of crude during peak summer demand for gasoline.

Oil companies have detailed about 772,000 barrels per day of shut-in Nigerian production due to militant attacks and sabotage -- about a quarter of its capacity.

With potential outages from Venezuela and Iraq, there are few reasons to think that global oil prices will fall anytime soon, he said.

"Most of the price risk is on the upside," he said.