"This year we have seen the first effects of the low price environment on production," said Mike Wittner of the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris.

"The unfolding story for 1999 will be the lower upstream budgets, and their effect on production. Decline rates in mature fields may be steeper than currently anticipated, and this will be a big wildcard next year," Wittner said.

Total non-Opec crude output in 1998 will amount to just a half a per cent gain over annual 1997 levels, at 40.99 million barrels a day, up 210,000 bpd, a Reuters survey shows.

In 1997, annual non-Opec production of 40.78 million barrels represented a 2.5 per cent gain over year-earlier levels.

Key to the non-Opec production losses was a 1.5 per cent decline in output from the United States, which leads non-Opec producers, and a more dramatic 8.5 per cent slide in output by lead North Sea producer Norway.

Norway's 278,000 bpd production losses, partially a result of its pledge to rein in 100,000 bpd in an effort with Opec to shore up world oil markets, were also the result of maintenance problems at older fields and delayed start up of new projects.

Fields including Varg, Visund and Asgaard suffered delays.

U.S. Department of Energy officials attribute US declines to a 77,000 bpd slide in natural gas liquids output, as well as a 122,000 bpd slide in Alaskan production. New field developments in the Gulf of Mexico helped buffer the losses.

US and Norwegian declines all but eclipsed impressive gains by other major non-Opec producers like Britain and Canada, which turned in 5.9 per cent and 4.4 per cent gains, respectively.

Royal Bank of Scotland figures show Britain's oil production in October was at its highest so far this year.

A year-on-year gain of around 150,000 bpd is largely the due to the November 1997 start-up of the Foinaven field which represented roughly a quarter of production from new fields.

Canadian production of 2.2 million bpd (excluding oil sands) represents a 93,000 bpd gain, mainly from increased recovery factors from existing reserves in the Western Sedimentary Basin.

Oil sands production, which would add an additional 425,000 bpd to Canada's output total, is expected to double by 2020.

Mexico, which also promised price supportive export cuts, showed relatively flat production levels, at 3.43 million bpd.

Countries within the former Soviet territories showed a collective gain of around 50,000 bpd to arrive at 7.25 million bpd in spite of a lacklustre Russian output performance, with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan registering gains of around four per cent and nine per cent, respectively.

Chinese oil production of some 3.25 million bpd represents a flat performance for the year, though rising demand continues to boost the country's Reliance on imports.

The country suffers from a current crude oil shortfall of roughly 175,000 bpd, according to China's official Business News.

Business News anticipates 1999 production gains of 1.3 per cent, though the IEA sees China's crude output around 300,000 bpd lower in the year to come.

Colombia again led the pack in the rapidly growing Latin American region with 16 per cent gains stemming in large part from a successful ramp-up of the giant Cusiana-Cupiaga field.

Brazil showed a gain of roughly nine per cent.

Late July, state Petrobras posted a record daily production figure of 1.03 million bpd, attributing the increase to an improvement in its facilities installed at the Campos basin and the production start-up at its Voador field.

Production from the largest field at Campos, Roncador, may add another 180,000bpd next year.

The survey covers more than 95 per cent of the oil pumped by suppliers other than Opec members and includes natural gas liquids, as well as crude, from most countries. It does not include processing gains, or oil from unconventional crude sources.

Figures for 1998 include projections for December output,and in some cases for November output.

Figures in millions of barrels per day come mostly from National governments. Other sources include oil companies, consultancies, the IEA, and Oxford Institute of Energy Economics.