The agency based in Paris raised its estimate by a daily
60,000 barrels to 86.4 million barrels a day. That's a 2 percent increase from
2009, when global oil demand shrank 1.5 percent.
In its monthly report on the oil markets released Thursday,
the IEA also said the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and the
ongoing oil spill might prove "to be a supply-side game changer." The
agency, the energy arm of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, a grouping of the world's richest nations, said it cannot be sure
what regulatory changes will result. It said an assumption of one to two years
of delays for all planned new deepwater oil field projects implies a reduction
of up to 300,000 barrels a day in 2015 production from the US Gulf of Mexico.
Meanwhile, oil climbed above $74 per barrel on Thursday. US
crude for July rose 47 cents to $74.85 a barrel by 1213 GMT. ICE Brent gained
22 cents to $74.49.
US crude has recovered almost $10 from below $65 on May 20,
but is still down 15 percent from a 19-month peak on May 3.
US crude stocks last week dropped a larger-than-expected 1.8
million barrels, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Wednesday.
That was the same amount by which stockpiles of distillates
including heating oil and diesel increased as distillate demand slowed, showing
a gain of 9.3 percent in the four weeks ended June 4, compared with 17 percent
in the four weeks to May 28.
US gasoline supplies were little changed last week, the EIA
said.
