Oil price risks are skewed toward the downside, but prices will most likely drift in their recent range for the rest of the year, International Energy Agency Deputy Executive Director Richard Jones said Monday.
Oil price risks are skewed toward the downside, but prices will most likely drift in their recent range for the rest of the year, International Energy Agency Deputy Executive Director Richard Jones said Monday.

The price outlook hinges on oil demand growth, and "our prognosis is that there won't be many changes this year in fundamentals," Jones told Dow Jones Newswires on the sidelines of a United Nations conference here.

But eventually, in the next three to four years, new oil production--particularly from Brazil and West Africa --will weigh on prices, he said.

The first of three floating production, storage and offloading vessels is due to start producing from Ghana's 700 million barrels of oil equivalent Jubilee field before the end of this year at a maximum capacity of 120,000 barrels a day, Tullow Oil PLC's (TLW.LN) Chief Operating Officer Paul McDade said earlier this month.

Brazil 's Tupi field holds an estimated 5 billion to 8 billion barrels of recoverable reserves. The initial development phase is expected to commence in late 2010, with initial production of up to 100 000 barrels a day, BG Group, which has a 25% share of Tupi, said on its Web site.

Jones said recovery in U.S. oil demand so far hasn't been strong. While there have been some encouraging signs of growth, energy intensity per GDP unit in the U.S. has dropped, he said. Growth may not come back as strong as it was prior to the economic downturn, Jones said.

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