The supply and demand equation is worse than thought.
The International Energy Agency is looking for 200 million barrels of oil. The crude has not been displaced, it seems. Rather, there is a 200-million-barrel gap between the agency’s own global inventory calculations and what it observed in the global oil supply.
Per a Bloomberg report, the IEA had calculated that, based on certain supply and demand assumptions, global oil stocks last year should have declined by 400 million barrels. Instead, they declined by 600 million barrels.
“A retrospective view shows the difficulty over the past two years of reliably analyzing and forecasting supply and demand,” the IEA said as quoted by Bloomberg. “Lessons learned will improve the work in 2022 and allow us to better understand our market.”