Houston, Oct 9 (IANS): Crude oil production from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will average 29.6 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2020, down by 2.3 million b/d from 2018, according to a report released Tuesday by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

In its October Short-Term Energy Outlook, EIA also forecast that annual average OPEC crude oil production will average 29.8 million b/d in 2019, down by 2.1 million b/d from 2018, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Meanwhile, EIA estimated that crude oil production from OPEC averaged 28.2 million b/d in September, down by 1.6 million b/d from August, the lowest level of OPEC production since November 2003 as a result of the disruptions in Saudi Arabia, and down by 4.0 million b/d from September 2018.

The decrease in OPEC crude oil production during the past year was primarily the result of falling production in Iran and Venezuela as well as the recent disruption in Saudi Arabia.

However, EIA estimated that Saudi Arabia's crude oil production returned to pre-outage levels as of October 3.