A tale of two forecasts

Both the IEA and Opec agree global oil demand will increase in 2017. Supplies are trickier to figure out

While neither the International Energy Agency (IEA) nor Opec proved particularly successful at forecasting oil supply and demand trends in 2016 they agree on two things: economic growth will drive global oil consumption higher in 2017 and the call on Opec is increasing. Now Opec has agreed a deal to curb output by 1.2m barrels a day from January, so if the agencies are right the market will tighten. Both Opec and the IEA expect global economic growth to average around 3% in 2017, roughly in line with the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s estimate for 2016. That will yield oil-consumption growth of 1.2m b/d, about the same as in 2016. But in absolute terms, their baselines still differ. The