Energy agency raises oil demand forecast

Global oil demand will rise faster than previously expected this year, the IEA forecast on Tuesday, reporting that consumption accelerated at the end of 2013 as advanced economies led by the United States recovered. But growth of Chinese demand slowed down in the second half of 2013, the International Energy Agency said. Highlighting huge changes in the undercurrents of the oil market despite stable prices, the IEA said that emerging economies were now driving growth of oil demand, but its monthly report focused strongly on a huge rise in US output. This was accelerating debate about whether or not the United States should lift a ban dating from the oil shocks of the 1970s on the export of oil, the IEA said. In the 34 countries belonging to the OECD group of advanced democracies, and for the first time since 2010, "demand appears to have swung back into growth in 2013," the International Energy Agency said in its monthly report on the oil market. It raised its estimate of global demand for oil in the last quarter of 2013 by 135,000 barrels per day to 91.2 million barrels per day "led by a significant upward revision of 700,000 bd to the US demand assessment pegged to industrial fuels". That was an increase of 40,000 bd from the IEA's estimate in December and was equivalent to a gain of 1.2 mbd or 1.4 percent in 2013. "Momentum is forecast to accelerate modestly to 1.3 mbd in 2014," the agency said. That represented an increase from the December forecast of 90,000 bd and took total demand to 92.5 mbd, "supported by the strengthening macroeconomic picture."