Oil surplus to return next year, IEA predicts

The oil market is now in balance thanks to unplanned outages and robust demand, particularly from emerging economies, but this equilibrium will tilt into surplus again early next year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said yesterday.

In its monthly report, the agency said demand growth in 2017 is likely to reach 1.3m barrels per day (bpd), the same level it estimates for this year, having revised up its May 2016 forecast of 1.2m bpd.

“Again, on the planning assumption that Opec oil production grows modestly in 2017, we expect to see global oil stocks build slightly in the first half of 2017 before falling slightly more in the second half of 2017,” the Paris-based IEA said.