Trading executives say the surplus in Europe's Mediterranean market is building up. Kazakhstan is due to deliver a long-awaited leap in its mostly light production next year and Azerbaijan is due to stabilise its output of super light oil.
This will aggravate the rivalry with comparable quality crude from Algeria, the North Sea and Africa, which no longer flow to the United States and can count on only Asia as an alternative market.
"In the past, when OPEC was cutting production by half a million barrels, everyone was jumping up and down. Today no one cares as we have a real surplus of oil," said the head of Azeri state oil firm Socar's trading arm, Valery Golovushkin.
"There is already plenty of oil in the Mediterranean. We at Socar are relying on long-term supply contract to Asia. But quite honestly we don't feel any particular joy from taking it to Asia and wasting money on freight," said Golovushkin, a veteran of the Soviet oil export industry.
