According to Reuters news on the 17th, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday that although vaccination materials will boost demand for crude oil later this year, oil prices are unlikely to continue to rise sharply because global oil supplies are still abundant.
The IEA said in its monthly report that “oil prices have soared to around US$70 per barrel, which has triggered discussions about the new super cycle and the imminent supply shortage. Our data and analysis have reached the opposite conclusion.”
The IEA mentioned that although oil inventories are steadily declining, they are still abundant compared to historical levels; in addition to the inventory buffer, due to OPEC+ production restrictions, a large amount of idle production capacity has been accumulated.
Affected by this, as of press time, NYMEX crude oil fell 0.93% to $64.20/barrel; ICE cloth oil fell 1.13% to $67.62/barrel.
At the same time, the IEA also stated that it maintains a stable forecast for global oil demand in 2021; it is expected that global crude oil demand will rebound by 5.5 million barrels per day in 2021.
On the evening of March 4, local time, Saudi Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman was attending the 14th meeting of oil ministers of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and some non-OPEC oil-producing countries It was announced that the period for Saudi Arabia's voluntary crude oil production reduction by 1 million barrels per day will be extended by one month to the end of April this year.
After the news came out, international oil prices rose rapidly in the short term. The prices of West Texas light crude oil in the United States and Brent crude oil in the United Kingdom both hit their highest levels in more than a year.
As the world's largest crude oil exporter in 2020, Saudi Arabia's every move in crude oil production has attracted global attention. Earlier, Saudi Energy Minister Abdulaziz had promised that in addition to strictly complying with the production reduction agreement reached by OPEC member states and some non-OPEC oil-producing countries, Saudi Arabia will reduce its crude oil production by an additional 1 million barrels in February and March 2021. To ensure the balance of supply and demand in the global market.
Statistics show that in the past February, Saudi Arabia achieved an additional reduction of about 850,000 barrels per day. According to the OPEC survey, as of December 2020, the crude oil inventories of OECD countries have fallen for the fifth consecutive month.