Growth in oil demand forecast

In its first 2012 forecast in a monthly report, the IEA said oil use would grow by 1.47m barrels per day (bpd) to 91m bpd. The agency also trimmed its estimate of demand growth this year to 1.20m bpd.

The IEA’s 2012 prediction was more than the 1.32m bpd expected by OPEC and lower than a forecast from the United States’ Energy Information Administration. It expects all of the growth next year to come from emerging economies.

Differences between the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and consumer nations widened after OPEC in June failed to reach a deal on a Saudi-led proposal to increase output.

In response, the IEA decided to release oil from emergency stocks for only the third time since it was founded in 1974, to fill the gap in supplies left by the disruption to Libya’s output.