Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden
In almost every oil cycle, the market is confronted with the problem of “missing barrels”, or the gap between the change in inventory implied by global supply-demand balances on the one hand and the observed change in inventory levels by commercial and government entities (adjusted for floating storage and oil in transit) on the other hand.
As the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies writes in a report published today, based on IEA global oil balances, the surplus during the first three quarters of 2020 averaged around 4.4 mb/d, with the surplus in the first half of 2020 reaching a record level of 7.6 mb/d due to the severity of the demand shock and the break-up of the OPEC+ agreement in March. This implies an inventory increase in H1 2020 of 1,390 million barrels (mbbls), before declining by 194.2 mbbls in Q3. Continue reading ““This Is Astounding”: China Is Snapping Up Most Of The World’s “Missing” Barrels Of Oil”