Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.13
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
Global oil demand growth for 2018 has been increased slightly to 1.4 million barrels per day (mb/d), partly due to an optimistic GDP forecast from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its Oil Market Report.
This is down from last year’s gain of 1.6 mb/d, as higher oil prices, shifting Chinese demand patterns and fuel switching in non-OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) slows growth, according to the report.
IEA demand growth estimate for 2017 remains strong at 1.6 mb/d, reinforced by November data for the US.
“For 2018, the more positive global economic picture published by the International Monetary Fund is a key factor in raising our growth outlook to 1.4 mb/d. It was thought that the significant increase in the dollar price of crude oil since the middle of 2017 would dampen growth, and this might be the case to some extent, but the impact of higher prices has been partly offset in some countries by currency appreciations,” said the report.
IEA experts noted that although the OECD is not the whole world, the leading oil producers who agreed to cut output identified the level of the group’s stocks as an indicator of the progress of their initiative.
“With the surplus having shrunk so dramatically, the success of the output agreement might be close to hand. This, however, is not necessarily the case: oil price rises have come to a halt and gone into reverse, and, according to our supply/demand balance, so might the decline in oil stocks, at least in the early part of this year,” the report said.
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