Oil demand ‘fairly strong’ for 2018 - Vitol

The Financial Times (FT) reports comments from Vitol’s, the world’s biggest independent oil trader, Executive Committee member Chris Bake, delivered at the International Petroleum Week conference in London late-Thursday.

Key Quotes:

Sees “fairly strong” demand for crude this year.

Robust consumption and production cuts led by OPEC countries had led to a “visible track down in oil inventories.”

“Half a billion barrels of oil has been drawn down in a short period of time.” 

Stockpiles at important oil storage hubs such as Saldanha Bay in South Africa have been “emptied” and crude stored on tankers at sea, such as off the coast of Iran and Singapore, is “all gone.”