OPEC will probably hold production steady at its meeting next month as the gap between supply and demand for oil closes, according to the analyst who correctly predicted last year’s rout in prices. “I don’t think they have to do anything,” Gary Ross, founder and chairman of PIRA Energy Group, said in an interview in Singapore on Monday, referring to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Bloomberg reported. Global consumption of crude will continue to grow while output from non-OPEC countries will decline next year, helping to bring the market toward equilibrium, he said. Oil tumbled more than 48% last year as US stockpiles and production expanded, creating a global oversupply that the International Energy Agency estimates will persist until at least the middle of 2016. “There has to be a tightening of balances,” said Ross, who last year turned bearish on oil before prices shrank by almost half. "While OPEC volumes have increased, both demand and production from outside the group have responded to low prices."
