The International Energy Agency said on Friday that world oil demand would dip slightly this year but warned that oil and petrol markets could tighten, leading to further price rises.
The IEA focused on political unrest in Nigeria and falls in OECD oil stocks and US petrol reserves ahead of the summer "driving season", along with strains in the global refining sector.
The agency reduced its forecast figure for global demand for oil in 2007 by 0.1 million barrels per day from its estimate in April, to 85.7 million barrels because of mild weather in the northern hemisphere and a slightly lower forecast for demand in China.
But it warned: ""With average (petrol) retail prices in the US near record highs at just over three dollars per gallon several weeks ahead of the start to the summer driving season, concerns over supplies are being raised."
In London, oil prices rose after the report was released, also as a result of the chronic violence in Nigeria, dealers said.
In Paris, the influential energy watchdog stressed that "underlying worries about product availability in the summer are concerns that geopolitics could threaten crude supplies, mostly in Nigeria."
It said that since the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was "apparently unconvinced of the need to review crude production before its scheduled September meeting, steady output at current levels would lead to the group undershooting our calculated range for a call on it crude, and thus tightening stock further."
The Paris-based IEA, which represents the interests of consumer countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, warned that a draw on
" type="hidden"> SEARCHNews | | Images | Web" type="hidden"> OPEC crude oil stocks "of 900,000 barrels per day over the past six months is unusually high.
"Crude stocks will tighten if OPEC production stays at current levels through to the end of the third quarter - as some officials have suggested."
Although an optimistic view might argue that current crude stocks are adequate, "this report anticipates a thirsty market in the months ahead."
In the United States, the biggest energy consuming country in the world, "gasoline (petrol) stock cover is at a 16-year low for this time of year - pushing pump prices to near record levels."
The was partly the result of routine refinery maintanence, but the IEA also said that "a spate of problems has hampered the expected recovery in crude throughputs (refining) from the seasonal first-quarter trough in runs."
That was aggravated by unrest in Nigeria, a major supplier of "high gasoline-yielding light sweet crudes."
On Thursday, gunmen killed two policemen on the outskirts of Port Harcourt, Nigeria's oil capital, police there said, less than two days after three naval personnel were wounded when the construction vessel they were guarding offshore was attacked.
On Wednesday officials said four US oil workers had been seized by gunment in southern Nigeria, adding to a list of dozens of foreigners taken hostage in recent weeks.
Source : news.yahoo.com
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