Thomson Reuters reported the falling oil prices and weak demand within the oil market, as the dollar strengthens.
According to a Reuters article, the oil market crude exports are rising, causing an inflation of supply unable to be consumed by demand. USB analyst Giovanni Staunovo said, "OPEC crude exports are up by about 1 million barrels per day (bpd) since their Aug. low, as a result of seasonally lower domestic demand in the Middle East. It seems it is too much supply to be absorbed by oil consuming nations."
Mizuho analyst Robert Yawger expressed concerns about the balance of global oil supply and demand stating that "there are concerns in the oil markets about both rising supply and sliding demand. It's certainly not a tight market right now."
City Index analyst Fiona Cincotta noted particular signs of concern in China's oil market which showed higher imports and lower total exports of goods and services. She said, "The data signals the continued decline in the Chinese economic outlook driven by deteriorating demand in the country's largest export destination: the West."
The Energy Information Administration's (EIA) short-term energy outlook suggests an increase in production and lower global consumption for global oil markets. The EIA forecasted that global liquid fuels rate of growth will be an increase of one million barrels per day for 2024, a lower rate than the 1.6 million barrels per day that occurred in 2023. EIA still expects cuts from OPEC+ will help maintain global production growth being lower than global consumption growth.
In light of recent conflicts in Middle East, EIA also mentioned that there has been limited "growth in global crude oil supply" for 2023 because of voluntary production cuts from Saudi Arabia and other OPEC+ countries which raised OPEC’s spare crude oil production capacity from 2.4 million b/d in 2022 to a forecast of 4.3 million b/d in 2024, held mostly by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The EIA pointed out that the tension and uncertainty related to the attacks in the Middle East pose a risk to available oil supplies, although the situation as not yet directly impacted the physical markets yet.