The International Energy Agency said Thursday it foresaw a “sustained tightening” in crude markets and a reduction in global product stocks, despite recent price weakness. In its monthly oil market report, the agency attributed current price weakness to low refinery throughputs in the second quarter and anticipated refinery maintenance coming up in the fourth quarter, and also noted an uptick in non-OPEC output. Its demand growth estimate for this year remained unchanged at 1.4 million b/d. The overall outlook for the second half of this year is for a broadly balanced oil market, it said. In the second quarter, “refinery throughput declined 500,000 b/d year on year, the first annual drop of this scale since the Great Recession of 2008-09. Even in China, the world’s second largest oil consumer, rapidly expanding independent refinery runs forced oil majors Sinopec and Petrochina to cut throughput.” “We expect more subdued growth in […]