The top executives at some of the world’s largest independent oil traders do not expect global oil demand to materially improve over the next six to nine months—Instead, they expect oil prices to remain stuck in a narrow range in the $40s at least until the middle of 2021. The senior executives at commodity trading giants Vitol, Mercuria, and Gunvor are not optimistic about the demand recovery in the near term, they said at the FT Commodities Global Summit on Tuesday. Russell Hardy, chief executive at the biggest independent oil trader in the world, Vitol Group, expects global oil demand to stay flat until the summer of 2021, and has “modest expectations” about oil prices, Reuters quoted Hardy as telling the summit. Hardy himself appeared quite bullish on oil inventories drawing down two weeks ago. The world’s stockpiles of oil have diminished by around 300 million barrels since peaking […]