London, 11 August 2011

Based on projections from the EIA August 2011 Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) could earn $1,011 billion of net oil export revenues in 2011 and $1,105 billion in 2012. Last year, OPEC earned $778 billion in net oil export revenues, a 35 percent increase from 2009. Saudi Arabia earned the largest share of these earnings, $225 billion, representing 29 percent of total OPEC revenues. On a per-capita basis, OPEC net oil export earnings reached $2,074 in 2010.

The REPORT includes estimates of OPEC net oil export revenues. For each country, estimates of oil production and consumption from the latest version of the STEO are used to derive net oil exports.

EIA assume that these exports are sold at prevailing spot prices. For countries that export several different crude varieties, they assume that the proportion of total net oil exports represented by each variety is equal to the proportion of the total domestic production represented by that variety; in other words, if EIA assume that Arab Medium represents 20 percent of total oil production in Saudi Arabia, then they assume that Arab Medium represents 20 percent of total net oil exports from Saudi Arabia.

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