IEA: No downturn in oil demand

The head of the International Energy Agency said Feb. 6 that he expected no downturn in world demand for OPEC’s crude oil in the historically weaker April-June period, despite forecasts suggesting otherwise.

IEA Executive Director Claude Mandil said at a conference in London that he expected “no decline in demand for OPEC crude in the second quarter.”

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has said that the world’s implied need for its crude in the second quarter is 2.4 million barrels a day below the estimated 30 million barrels a day that was needed — and is currently produced — in the first three months of this year.

OPEC said in its report earlier in January that outright world oil demand will fall more than 2 percent, or 1.9 million barrels a day, in the second quarter to 83.57 million barrels a day, compared with the first three months of the year.

Mandil also said that the oil industry faced oil capacity constraints for some time ahead and this made it “puzzling to see how investment has been lagging for years,” though “political risks don’t seem to be diminishing.”

—The Associated Press