The IEA released highlights for the December Oil Market report in mid December. I have used information from the November report and assumed OPEC crude output will be 32.7 Mb/d and non OPEC output will be 500 kb/d below the November report supply estimate. I have also used the demand estimates from the December highlights.Based on these assumptions World Supply from the first quarter of 2015 to the fourth quarter of 2017 is greater than demand by a total of 280 million barrels. In other words, World crude stocks should be 280 million barrels more than the Dec 2014 level at the end of 2017, if the supply and demand estimate presented is correct. Also the fourth quarter 2017 demand estimate is 1.7 Mb/d higher than supply. If that draw on stocks continues into 2018 then World crude stocks would fall to zero by mid June 2018. Higher oil […]