OPEC Will be the Winners of 2015's Oil Price War

OEPC could be set to win the current price war if supplies by producers outside OPEC decline by the forecasted 200,000 bpd in 2016.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) says with supplies outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) forecasted to contract next year for the first time since 2008, OPEC's current strategy of refusing to cut production to keep market share should see it win the current price war, Bloomberg reports.

IEA predicts production by non-OPEC nations to decline by 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2016 while consumption is predicted to increase by 1.4 million bpd, with the OPEC countries then likely to fill the resulting increased market demand.

"To declare their policy a failure is a pretty big leap. I don't think you could view Saudi and OPEC's business plan and model as being a six or 12-month view," said said Greg Sharenow, executive vice president of Pacific Investment Management Co. (Pacific Investment).

"In the long-run, what you're going to see is lower non-OPEC supply, higher demand and greater market share for them."

Already low crude prices have slide further in recent weeks, with Brent spending most of last month under $50 per barrel sending bunker prices crashing to 10 year lows.

But the low prices could prove just as beneficial for OPEC as they are for bunker buyers, as it piles further pressure on competitors with higher production costs.

“The worst thing for the Saudi strategy was when prices rallied to $60 and looked like they’d stay there, because other producers can learn to live with it,” said Paul Horsnell, head of commodities research at Standard Chartered Plc.

“For that strategy to work, it needed a further severe downward correction in prices.”

The longer crude prices struggle, the more pressure is created on shale producers, as many U.S. shale companies are understood to be burdened by loans taken while the industry was booming.

However some OPEC countries are struggling with the low prices, such as Ecuador, which last month was producing at a loss of about $9 a barrel according to the country's President Rafael Correa.

Nevertheless, Societe Generale SA (Societe Generale) says that the current situation is better than the alternative, and argues that by cutting down output, OPEC would have ceded its market share, lost revenue in the long-run, and provided price support for U.S. shale producers, inflating the surplus.

Last year, due to growing output from U.S. shale oil producers, OPEC’s world oil market share is said to have dwindled its lowest in a decade.

“This has always been a long game measured in years, not months. They just need to be patient,” said Mike Wittner, head of oil-market research at Societe Generale.

Yesterday Ship & Bunker reported that Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh says that most of the OPEC members believe $70 to $80 per barrel for crude would be a "fair" price.