Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 12
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
In the third quarter of 2019, global refining throughput continued the recent pattern of decline, Trend reports citing the Oil Market Report of the International Energy Agency (IEA).
It fell by 0.5 million barrels per day (mb/d) year-on-year, reducing IEA’s annual growth forecast to just 150,000 b/d, which is the lowest in ten years.
“Our refined product balances imply a counter-seasonal draw in 3Q19, as demand is estimated to have picked up after five consecutive quarters of almost no growth. In 2020, throughput increases by 1.2 mb/d,” said the report.
IEA said that industry stocks in member-states of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) increased by 20.8 mb in August to 2 974 mb and stood 43.1 mb above the five-year average.
“Stocks in terms of days of forward demand rose by 0.6 days to 61.6 days, which is 0.6 days below the average. Preliminary data for September showed stocks falling in all three OECD regions and by 21.7 mb overall. Floating storage of crude oil rose by 1.8 mb in September to 70.1 mb. The number of Iranian vessels used for storage was unchanged from the previous month,” reads the report.
IEA said that the market is the first responder to a supply crisis and OECD commercial stocks in August increased for the fifth consecutive month and are now close to the record 3+ billion barrels level we saw during most of 2016.
“IEA members hold an additional 1.6 billion barrels of strategic stocks, and the prompt response by the Agency to consider an emergency stocks release helped to calm markets. Commercial and strategic inventories go a long way to offsetting the lack of spare crude production capacity outside of Saudi Arabia, limited mainly to 1 mb/d in Iraq, UAE, Kuwait and Russia. We might have quickly returned to business as usual, but security of supply remains very relevant,” said the report.
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