Oil slides as IEA predicts surplus, Libya disruption concerns fade - Reuters

Oil slides as IEA predicts surplus, Libya disruption concerns fade - Reuters:

Oil prices dropped on Wednesday as the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) forecast of a market surplus in the first half of this year was enough to cancel out concerns about military disruptions that have slashed Libya’s crude output.

Brent crude LCOc1 was down 30 cents, or 0.5%, at $64.29 a barrel at 0731 GMT, after falling 0.3% on Tuesday. U.S. oil CLc1 fell 33 cents, or 0.6%, to $58.05 a barrel, having declined 0.3% the day before.

The head of the IEA, Fatih Birol, said he expects the market to be in surplus by a million barrels per day (bpd) in the first half of this year.

“I see an abundance of energy supply in terms of oil and gas,” Birol told the Reuters Global Markets Forum on Tuesday, while attending the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos.