Oil demand may exceed supply by up to 4 million bpd by 2019: Trafigura

SINGAPORE  - Global oil demand may be between 2 million to 4 million barrels per day (bpd) more than worldwide crude supply by the end of 2019 as exploration spending has declined as prices fell, an executive with commodities trading house Trafigura said on Tuesday.

The mismatch in supply and demand is the result of a decline in spending to find new oil and gas reserves and as existing wells, especially new wells from shale formations, are naturally used up, said Ben Luckock, Trafigura’s co-head of group market risk, at an industry conference in Singapore.

Benchmark Brent crude oil prices collapsed to as low as $27.10 a barrel in January 2016 from as much as $115.71 in June 2014. Prices have rebounded since then to over $59. The steep decline in revenue as prices dropped caused companies to cut their exploration budgets.

Luckock pointed to a drop in exploration spending in 2016 to about $300 billion from $700 billion two years earlier as a reason supply will eventually fall below demand.

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