LOC13:41
10:41 GMT
PARIS, Jan 19 (KUNA) -- Oil demand growth was steady in 2017 and will increase less quickly in 2018 but projections are unchanged from estimates a month ago, while prices have firmed to a three-year high in mid-January, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a report on Friday.
The latest monthly "Oil Market Report (OMR)" from the Agency said that overall demand last year reached 97.8 million barrels per day (mbpd), up 1.6 mbpd from 2016 levels.
In addition, the IEA writes that demand will increase by only 1.3 mbpd to 99.1 mbpd in 2018, a forecast also unchanged from December's report.
The impact of firmer oil prices and changes of oil use in China, combined with weakness in the industrialised OECD area, are combining to hold back higher demand growth this year, the IEA observed.
Meanwhile, global oil supply in December eased by 405,000 b/d to 97.7 mbpd on the back of lower North Sea production and a sharp fall-off in output from OPEC producer, Venezuela.
As a result, overall OPEC production fell to 32.23 mbpd last month, bringing compliance with agreed output restraints by the producer group to 129 percent.
"Declines are accelerating in Venezuela, which posted the world's biggest unplanned output fall in 2017," the Paris-based IEA remarked.
On the non-OPEC side, "rapid US growth and gains in Canada and Brazil will drive up non-OPEC supply by 1.7 mbpd in 2018, versus last year's 700,000 b/d increase," the OMR predicted, saying the US could surpass leading producers Saudi Arabia and Russia with output above 10.0 mbpd.
OECD stocks declined for the fourth consecutive month in November, by 17.9 million barrels, with a large fall in middle distillates.
Provisional data indicates a further draw of 42.7 million barrels in December. (end)
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