OPEC increased oil production in June

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has increased oil production by around 530,000 barrels a day.

A Platts survey of OPEC and oil industry officials and analysts showed that in June, OPEC pumped an average of 29.57 million barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil, compared to 29.04 million b/d in May.

However, the figures are still lower than the amount of oil produced in February when unrest across Egypt and the Middle East disrupted oil industry production in Libya, creating an increase of 760,000 b/d offset against cuts of 230,000 b/d.

"These numbers show that OPEC still has a lot of work to do, because the world's economy is going into a period where demand rises, and the loss of Libyan output makes meeting that demand problematic," explained John Kingston, director of news for Platts.

Recently, in order to cope with rising demand and an increase in prices, president Barrack Obama approved the release of US oil reserves.