Global Oil Data Deck (January 2026)
Market balances continued loosening and inventories swelled; supply growth is outpacing demand gains by more than 3x but demand is still outperforming expectations thanks to a bounceback in China.
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Overview
The global liquids market continued loosening and marked the largest surplus of supply over demand in November since the nadir of the COVID pandemic in April 2020; supply continues to grow at more than 3x the pace of demand, and while much of this surplus has been absorbed to rising sanctioned barrels on water we’re now also beginning to see the surplus show up in commercial onshore inventories as well. While demand growth is obviously lagging strong supply, consumption is also running faster than consensus expectation largely thanks to a bounceback in Chinese apparent demand.
Deteriorating oil market fundamentals have maintained downside pressure on the barrel, with both flat prices and term structure weakening through the end of 2025; the oil market was again rescued from a collapse into full curve contango by a collection of supply disruptions in December and January—between the CPC terminal outage, ongoing Venezuelan frictions, and hedging on Iran risk—that pushed up the front of the curve into a renewed smiley face.
[Full PDF Deck and Flow-Level Analysis Below Paywall]