“The Americans are coming” could have been the subtitle of the International Energy Agency’s latest outlook for oil markets.
Unveiling it at CERAWeek, an annual industry get-together in Houston organized by IHS Markit, IEA chief Fatih Birol posited on Monday that oil-supply growth from outside of OPEC would drive the market for at least the next three years — with one country in particular looking, er, dominant:

The United States will put its stamp on global oil-market developments in the next five years.

A less-obvious tag line is: “The refineries are coming.” The IEA’s headline projection for oil-demand growth is an extra 6.9 million barrels a day by 2023. But that obscures a shift in the type of oil being demanded.

Demand for refined products such as gasoline — whereby refineries turn crude oil into a useful fuel or feedstock — is projected to rise by just 4.8 million barrels a day. Much of the gap is taken up by a growing share of natural gas liquids, due largely to a surge in supply from the North American Shale Boom. . .

 

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