IEA sees global oil market returning to surplus in early 2017

[LONDON] Global oil supply and demand appear to be balancing in 2016, after a series of unplanned production outages, but the market is expected to return to a surplus in the first half of next year, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday.

The agency said demand growth in 2017 is likely to be flat at around 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd), which is where it now estimates growth will be this year.

"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. For the year as a whole, there will be a very small stock draw of 0.1 million bpd," the IEA said in its monthly report.

REUTERS