According to the recent May report done by the IEA – International Energy Agency on the global crude oil market as of March/April 2012. As the global Oil Supplies rose during April; the non-OPEC supply also increased during last month. OPEC oil inventories expanded during March. On the other hand the global crude throughputs reached a season low during April.
According to the recent monthly update, during April, OPEC’s oil production rose to 31.85 million bbl/d an increase of 410 kb/d. This gain was mostly due to increased supply in Libya, Iraq and Nigeria.
The non-OPEC countries’ oil production also edged up by 0.1 mb/d during April 2012. According to the report, the increase was despite the drop in supplies in UK and Canada.
The global oil demand projection is expected to rise by 0.8 mbbl/d to 90 mbbl/d in 2012 compared with 2011’s demand.
In the report, the OECD industry oil inventories increased by 13.5 million bbl to 2,649 million bbl in March 2012. The oil stockpiles are above the 5-year average for the first time in nine months; this means that the oil market is starting to loosen up in OECD countries, mainly in Europe; this was probably among the reasons for the falling in difference between Brent oil and WTI in recent months.
Finally, crude oil throughputs reached a season low of 73.4 million barrels per day during April. This low figure coincided with the refinery maintenance. There are expectations that this crude runs will pick up during May. If this will be the case then oil market might loosen up, which could also bring crude oil prices further down.
For further reading: