India overtaking China as driver of oil demand growth, IEA says

The excess of oil supplies globally will be lower than previously expected in 2016 as India overtakes the People's Republic of China as the key driver behind demand growth and robust demand from other emerging economies, the rich-world's oil watchdog said.

According to the International Energy Agency global supplies will exceed demand by 1.3m barrels a day over the first half of 2015, down from the projection for a surplus of 1.5m barrels a day it made just one month ago.

Nonetheless, oil price gains were "likely to be limited by brimming crude and products stocks,” the Paris-based organisation said in its monthly oil market report.

Global demand for 'black gold' was still see increasing by 1.2m barrels a day from the levels seen in 2015 but was now expected to reach 95.9m a day, 100,000 barrels more than its last stab at making a prediction.

Further upward revision to its demand forecasts were possible, the IEA said.

The world's supplies of oil from outside OPEC was seen shrinking by 800,000 barrels a day over 2016 to 56.8m as low prices ate into US tight-oil producers production, with the recent wildfires in Canada seen subtracting from global demand by 100,000 barrels a day.

The Organisation for Petroleum Exporting Countries was exporting 500,000 a barrel more than was necessary for this time of year, the organisation added.

As of 09:59 BST front month Brent crude oil futures were up by 0.502% to hit $47.84 per barrel on the ICE.