Finance
IEA Head Sees Oil Use Below Pre-Virus Levels for at Least a Year
- 2020 on track as worst year in oil-industry history: Birol
- Shale oil output seen rising if crude exceeds $40 a barrel
Oil tankers are seen anchored in the Pacific Ocean in this aerial photograph taken above Long Beach, California, U.S., on Friday, May 1, 2020.
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
It will take more than a year, and perhaps several, for oil demand to recover to what it was before the coronavirus shuttered economies and caused energy markets to collapse, according to the head of the International Energy Agency.
Crude demand of about 100 million barrels a day prior to the pandemic plummeted by about 30% last month, according to the Paris-based adviser to industrialized countries. The IEA, which forecast that demand will decline by about 9 million barrels a day on average this year, is set to update its outlook for markets on Thursday.