Improving economic performance in the United States and other industrialised nations is set to prompt a higher than expected global demand for oil this year, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The Paris-based agency yesterday forecast that global demand for oil would increase by 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd) to 92.5 million bpd, 90,000 bpd more than its previous forecast made in December.
The higher forecasts, made in the IAE’s Oil Market Report for January, come as the agency estimated that global demand rose by 135,000 bpd to 91.2 million bpd in the last quarter of 2013.
This figure is 40,000 bpd higher than the agency forecast in December.
The increase was “led by a significant upward revision of 700,000 [bpd] to the US demand assessment pegged to industrial fuels,” the IAE said.
“Demand appears to have swung back into growth in 2013,” in the 34 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development for the first time since 2010, the report said.
Increased demand in 2014 will be led by China, which will account for 390,000 barrels of the 1.3 million increase, as the country’s daily oil consumption reaches 10.49 million barrels, the agency said.
Rising demand will in turn raise the amount of crude oil needed from Opec members to 29.4 million bpd this year, about 200,000 a day more than the IEA forecast in December.
Opec’s production was about 400,000 bpd higher than the demand for its crude in December, according to the IEA.
The group’s supply rose for the first time in five months in December, increasing by 310,000 bpd to 29.82 million because of higher output from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Saudi Arabia boosted output by 75,000 bpd to 9.82 million last month, the IEA said. Production in Iran rose by 40,000 bpd month to 2.75 million.
Iraq was the only Opec member where production fell last month, declining by 25,000 bpd to 3.07 million.
jeverington@thenational.ae
