LONDON, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Global oil demand is unlikely to
get a significant boost from the roll-out of vaccines against
COVID-19 until well into 2021, the International Energy Agency
(IEA) said on Thursday, a view that is likely to dampen oil
price gains since vaccine progress was announced earlier this
week.
"It is far too early to know how and when vaccines will
allow normal life to resume. For now, our forecasts do not
anticipate a significant impact in the first half of 2021," the
IEA said in its monthly report.
"The poor outlook for demand and rising production in some
countries ... suggest that the current fundamentals are too weak
to offer firm support to prices."
While noting that OECD countries had modestly drawn down
their crude oil stocks for two months in a row by September, the
IEA said that storage levels were still not far from peaks in
May at the height of the pandemic.
It cited a resurgence of Covid-19 infections in Europe and
the United States and renewed lockdown measures for revising
down its outlook for global oil demand for 2020 by 400,000
barrels per day (bpd) compared with its last estimate.
Plans by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) and allies such as Russia to taper their
production cut pact from January would mean much oil would
remain in storage.
"Unless the fundamentals change, the task of re-balancing
the market will make slow progress," the IEA said.