Brent stays balanced in face of mixed demand picture

The Brent crude market will remain balanced this year as growth in non-Opec supply will increase at a similar pace to global demand growth, industry leaders said

Michael Wittner, global head of oil market research at Société Générale, said global crude demand is expected to in-crease by 1.45 million barrels a day (b/d) this year while non-Opec production will rise by around 1.5m b/d. Last year, global crude demand increased by 1.25m b/d while non-Opec supply growth increased by 1.45m b/d. Wittner told the Platts Global Crude Oil Summit, held in London, that this  relative tightness in spare capacity would balance the effect of relatively flat demand growth. According to International Energy Agency (IEA) figures for March, global crude production for the month  was 91.75m b/d. Non-Opec output fell by 300,000 b/d in March, to 55.7m b/d, because of decl