Baku, Azerbaijan, July 13
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
For 2017 as a whole, global oil demand is forecast to reach 98 million barrels per day, with growth revised up by 0.1 million barrels per day to 1.4 million barrels per day, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its Oil Market Report.
Further growth of 1.4 million barrels per day is foreseen for 2018, with global demand reaching 99.4 million barrels per day.
Taking demand and supply together, the current market balance implies a global stock draw of 0.7 million barrels per day in the second quarter of 2017, according to the IEA analysts.
“Each month something seems to come along to raise doubts about the pace of the re-balancing process. This month, there are two hitches: a dramatic recovery in oil production from Libya and Nigeria and a lower rate of compliance by OPEC with its own output agreement,” said the report.
IEA analysts say investors believe, perhaps impatiently, that oil market re-balancing is taking too long with some calling for additional action by producers to speed up the process.
“Oil investors are going through a period of waning confidence with prices recently returning to levels not seen since early November. Brent prices have closed below $50/bbl each day since early June and few investors expect a recovery anytime soon,” said the report.
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