Saudi Arabia and UAE could ease oil market volatility, IEA says

February 14, 2022: -On Friday, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) could help to calm volatile oil markets if they pumped crude, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia are the main oil producers with the sparest production capacity. They could help relieve dwindling global oil inventories that have been in the factors pushing prices towards $100 a barrel, deepening inflation worldwide.

“These risks, which have broad economic implications, could be reduced if producers in the Middle East with extra capacity were to compensate for those running out,” the Paris-based agency said in its monthly oil report.

The IEA said that adequate spare capacity could decrease to 2.5 million barrels for each day (BPD) by the end of the year, held up nearly entirely by Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser extent, the UAE.

An outcome to international talks with Iran could lift U.S. sanctions on the country’s exports and relieve supply tightness, the IEA added, gradually bringing 1.3 million BPD of Iranian oil back into the market.

Supply and demand look balanced in the first quarter but is expecting to flip into a surplus in the second quarter or second half of the year, said Toril Bosoni, head of the IEA’s oil markets division.

The need to refill depleted oil stocks, which in OECD countries have slumped to seven-year lows, which means immediate oversupply is unlikely.

“We don’t see it as a huge surplus looming in the market,” she told reporters.