Global inventories of crude oil declined by 45 million barrels in August after a 34-million-barrel reduction in July, Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in a TV interview. “Reserves accumulated in the second quarter are gradually shrinking, and we see that July and August were the first two months when stocks declined gradually. The reduction roughly amounted to 45 mln barrels in August and 34 [mln barrels] in July,” Novak told Rossiya-24. In more good news, Novak said that he expected oil demand to recover fully from the effects of the pandemic by the second quarter of 2021. Even now the oil market is in a supply deficit, amounting to between 1.5 and 2 million bpd, which is helping to reduce inventories, the official said. While Russia’s top oil man appears to be optimistic about the future of the oil market, his Saudi counterpart has taken a different stance, […]