Saudi Arabia's deputy minister for company affairs at the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources said on Thursday in Tokyo that OPEC estimates global oversupply to be around 2 million barrels per day (bpd).
"It will take some time for the market to rebalance," said Aabed A. Al-Saadoun. "We feel that the market will begin to come into balance in 2016 and that demand for energy in all forms will continue to increase."
The Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday that U.S. crude inventories climbed by 8.4 million barrels last week, higher than analyst expectations for a rise of 3.3 million barrels.
That brought crude inventories to the highest level since the EIA began tracking the data.
However, investors overlooked this seemingly bearish data and focused on crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery hub, which fell by 771,000 barrels. [EIA/S]
"Cushing was a crisis zone because it was getting close to capacity, so there is some relief for the inventory overhang," said Dominic Haywood, analyst at Energy Aspects