Opec Secretary General Haitham al-Ghais this week slammed the IEA following the organization’s 300,000+ b/d upwards revision to historical demand figures (MEES, 16 May). “At the push of a publishing button, the Agency erased three years’ worth of apparent global oil stock builds. Storage tanks are a lot less full than the IEA had been reporting previously and global balances are much tighter. It has shifted an outlook that was viewed as bearish to one that was on the bullish side.”
The Secretary General then raised questions over the reliability of the IEA’s demand forecasts for this year, stating that “the IEA still sees supply running ahead of demand in 2025 by around 0.7 mb/d, but could this also be revised in the years to come? What is clear is that when it comes to the IEA’s ‘missing barrels’ conundrum, a significant upward demand revision is usually the outcome.” (CONTINUED - 209 WORDS)