According to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the higher supply from competing oil producers will probably lead to a lower-than-expected demand for the OPEC crude in 2013.

In its recent monthly report, the OPEC said even though it expects demand for its crude to fall short of the expectations during the year, there will still be a substantial build up of inventories, despite a production cut by leading exporter Saudi Arabia.

As per the OPEC monthly report, world supply of crude will easily surpass demand in the first six months of 2013, in spite of the fact that Riyadh reduced production by nearly 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) last month, to avert a supply overhang and secure costs well above the `$100 per barrel' mark.

With OPEC having made a downward revision of the 2013 forecast for its crude, by 100,000 bpd to 29.65 mbpd, hoping the producers outside the 12-member OPEC group to pump more, the revised projections are lower than the organization's December production of 30.37 mbpd as estimated by secondary sources.

However, with the report marginally trimming OPEC's projections - by 10,000 bpd to 760,000 bpd - for worldwide growth in 2013 oil demand, OPEC said that though oil demand in the last few years has been affected by world economic turbulence, its impact on this year's oil demand is "not expected to be as sharp as last year, but instead considerably milder."