UAE's oil revenue stood at $9bn in the first quarter

The UAE's oil export revenue stood at nearly $9 billion (Dh33bn) in Q1 to emerge as the second largest earner along with Iran within the 12-nation Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, showed the figures by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy.

Opec earned $96bn in the first quarter of 2009 and the income could reach $476bn through the year, according to official US data.

In its latest forecast about the group's annual income, EIA massively revised up its earlier projection of $383bn to $476bn as it apparently expects oil prices to firm up in the second half on Opec's output cuts. But the revenues would still be less than half the $970bn netted by Opec in 2009, when it pumped at one of its highest levels and crude prices climbed to a record high average of nearly $100 a barrel.

Opec's revenues in the first quarter of 2009 were also sharply lower than its earnings of about $215bn in the first quarter of 2008.

A breakdown showed Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude exporter, netted $2bn in the first quarter of 2009, while the UAE and Iran earned $9bn each.

Kuwait, Algeria and Nigeria earned about $8bn each while the income of Iraq, Libya and Venezuela stood at $6bn each.

Oil prices average nearly $100 in 2008 but they plummeted to around $40 a barrel in the first three months of 2009.

The price plunge allied with Opec output cuts to sharply depress members' earnings during that period. Opec, which pumps just below 40 per cent of the world's crude supplies, has agreed since September to trim production by a total 4.2 million bpd to stop a rapid decline in oil prices because of the global financial crisis.

Expecting an improvement in oil prices, EIA projected Opec's income to recover to $598bn in 2010.

While they surged to a record high nominal level in 2008, OPEC's real earnings were as low as $785 billion in 2000 dollar price and could be only around $380 billion this year and $474 billion in 2010, according to EIA.

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