Permian oil rig Just as oil prices really started to pick up steam, the IEA had to spoil the party. The Paris-based energy agency said on Tuesday that the oil market will remain in a state of oversupply through the first half of 2017, and in fact, there are some worrying signs for oil prices in the near-term. The IEA lowered its oil demand forecast once again, dropping demand growth for 2016 to 1.2 million barrels per day. In September it expected growth of 1.3 mb/d, which in turn was down from the 1.4 mb/d estimate in August. Two consecutive months of downgrades to its demand figures come as the agency sees “vanishing OECD growth and a marked deceleration in China.” The development is all the more surprising because low fuel prices were expected to stoke demand. That did happen in the early phase of the current oil price […]