Off balance

摘要

Monthly forecasts are in, and the outlook does not look good for producers. Recently launched non-Opec projects are increasing output, while more are due on stream over the next 6-12 months. Demand growth is slowing in key markets. And now wild card elements within Opec — namely Libya and Nigeria — may be approaching an end to their long-standing problems with production disruption. Oil may now be in surplus until at least mid-2017 and potentially all the way until 2018, and the chances of a break above $50/bl are becoming slimmer. Newly revised supply and demand projections make gloomy reading for producers. Opec’s Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) adds in a big lump of non-Opec projects to its balances for 2016-17, principally Kazakhstan’s longdelayed Kashagan field. Opec’s current crude output is now 1mn b/d more than the market needs for the second half of this year and 800,000 b/d more than it needs in 2017, the MOMR projects. The IEA’s figures are more affected by downward demand revisions. The agency cuts demand by nearly 200,000 b/d for 2017 in its Oil Market Report, leaving a more modest 250,000 b/d surplus in the balances should Opec production remain where it is.