The recovery in global oil demand will accelerate in the second half of this year as the market continues to rebalance after the turmoil brought by the pandemic, according to OPEC and the International Energy Agency.
Despite increasing its estimates for oil output in 2021, the IEA said in its monthly market report that a recovery in demand would outstrip production in the second half of the year, prompting “a rapid stock draw” of the glut of crude that has built up since the pandemic began.
The agency significantly increased its forecast for producing nations outside of the pact between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies such as Russia, raising its projections for non-OPEC supply growth by 290,000 barrels a day to an increase of 830,000 barrels a day this year.
In its own monthly report, also released Thursday, OPEC reduced its non-OPEC production growth forecast by 200,000 barrels to 700,000 barrels a day.
At the same time, the IEA trimmed its forecast for global oil demand by 200,000 barrels a day to 96.4 million barrels, around 3% less than in 2019, but said part of that was because of a change to historic data. OPEC also reduced its own 2021 demand forecast, cutting it to 96.1 million barrels a day.
