Platts Survey: OPEC pumps 31.11 mb/d in October, up 350,000 b/d

"The October survey results are good news for consumers, who haven't had much to smile about recently," said John Kingston, Platts global director of oil. "The fact that Iraqi output is up again is very encouraging, especially against a backdrop of

news reports about some parts of the country stabilizing. It could be that output from the Iraqi fields, especially those in the north, are no longer hanging by a thread and may be seen as more reliable going forward. It's still a long way to get back to the almost 3 million barrels per day that was being produced just a few months before the March 2003 invasion by the US, but the trends are positive."