Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a Saudi billionaire investor with holdings in outfits like Citigroup and Time Warner, published a critical letter to Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, Ali Al-Naimi (on twitter, no less). It said that the country “won’t be able to fulfill its plan to increase capacity to 15 million barrels a day”, that “there’s a ‘clear and increasing decline’ in demand for oil pumped by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries”, and contested Al-Naimi’s underestimation of the impact of North American shale gas. [Bloomberg]

Iraq may post its first decline in oil exports since 2010 this year, owing to myriad infrastructure and security problems. “Unless momentum is regained, Baghdad will report an output decline for 2013, its first after two years of robust gains, much to the relief of rival Gulf producers.” [Reuters]

But on the upside for Opec, its official estimates of members’ combined petroleum export earnings rose to $1.26 trillion in 2012 from $1.15 trillion in 2011, despite a drop in export earnings in Iran and Algeria. “Crippling US and European Union sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program came into effect in the middle of last year.” [Platts]