IEA says worst may be over for crude oil prices
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OIL prices might have bottomed as production declines in the United States and other non-OPEC producers accelerate and an increase in Iranian supply has been less than dramatic, the International Energy Agency said yesterday.
After a spectacular 2015, growth in global demand was slowing — with India and the Middle East being rare pockets of improvement, the IEA said in a monthly report.
Growth could slow even further if oil prices kept rising, said the Paris-based IEA, which coordinates energy policies of industrialized nations.
Oil prices hit their lowest since 2003, below US$30 per barrel, in January on a supply glut stemming from booming US output in recent years and a decision by OPEC to ramp up supply to fight for market share against higher-cost producers.
Prices have since recovered to US$40 after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ leader, Saudi Arabia, and top non-OPEC producer Russia said they could freeze output.
The IEA said low oil prices were beginning to take a toll on high-cost production and it believed non-OPEC output would fall by 750,000 barrels per day in 2016, compared with its previous estimate of 600,000 bpd.
US production alone would decline by 530,000 bpd this year, it said.
“There are clear signs that market forces ... are working their magic and higher-cost producers are cutting output,” the IEA said.
The IEA said OPEC output fell by 90,000 bpd in February due to production outages in Nigeria, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates, which lost a combined 350,000 bpd.
“Meanwhile, Iran’s return to the market has been less dramatic than the Iranians said it would be; in February we believe that production increased by 220,000 bpd and, provisionally, it appears that Iran’s return will be gradual,” the IEA said.
Iran has promised to add as much as 1 million bpd to global supply after clinching a deal with the West in January to ease sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program.
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