Vitol Group, the world’s largest independent oil trader, expects global oil inventories to continue drawing down for the rest of the year, unlike its rivals and many analysts who see a growing glut on the market.
The world’s stockpiles of oil have diminished by around 300 million barrels since peaking at 1.2 billion barrels early this summer, and are expected to decline by another 250 million-300 million barrels between September and December, Vitol’s chief executive Russell Hardy told Bloomberg in an interview published on Wednesday.
Refineries that have bought a lot of cheap oil in the past few months are expected to play a key role in drawing down global oil inventories, Hardy told Bloomberg.
Gasoline demand could falter in the winter, but diesel demand could offset it, while jet fuel consumption still “looks bad,” Vitol’s top executive said, but added that demand recovery is likely to be uneven in the coming months.
“Things may get a little more difficult before it gets better, but we do believe that we’ll get through it and things will steadily improve,” .
Vitol looks more bullish on oil’s short-term prospects than another major commodity trader, Trafigura, which expects a "supply-heavy" market through the end of the year, with inventories building by the end of 2020 as demand recovery stalls.
The market will get worse before it gets better, Ben Luckock, Co-Head of Oil Trading at Trafigura, said at a conference on Monday, as carried by Bloomberg. The oversupply on the market is reaching the point where chartering tankers for floating storage becomes profitable, according to Luckock.
A resurgence of coronavirus cases in many parts of the world over the next few months will be the main hurdle to global demand for gasoline and diesel recovering to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2021, senior executives at oil firms and commodity traders said at the virtual Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference (APPEC) earlier this week.
