This is an oversupply that broadly aligns with expectations, but it nonetheless remains an oversupply in the oil market. The market is moving towards an increasingly pronounced surplus, compounded by a record number of new liquefied natural gas (LNG) project approvals in 2025, which are adding additional pressure to this environment.
The year 2025 has seen global oil inventories build up across virtually all regions, leading to a sustained weakening of oil prices. That said, several factors should be taken into account. First, location matters: not all inventories are equally relevant, and so far stockpiles have accumulated mainly away from the key pricing hubs that effectively determine market prices. Second, the diesel market is not experiencing the same oversupply, and crude prices can only weaken to a certain extent as long as a key product such as diesel remains balanced. Finally, sanctions have led refineries in key countries to reject Russian crude, diverting demand towards the Brent market and Dubai-linked grades.
Key factors to monitor heading into 2026:
For 2026, oil demand growth is projected at close to 0.9 million barrels per day, below the long-term historical trend of around 1.2 million barrels per day. Even so, this represents an upward revision compared with the particularly pessimistic outlook priced in last April following Liberation Day.
Supply from non-OPEC countries continues to expand. In 2025, a large number of new oil fields came on stream in non-OPEC producers such as Brazil, Guyana, Argentina, Canada, Norway and Angola. Most of these projects have already been completed and are now in the production phase, although some capacity has yet to be fully brought online. Overall, this has driven non-OPEC supply growth of approximately 1.2 million barrels per day. While this growth is expected to slow markedly from early 2026 onwards, non-OPEC supply ends 2025 at a very high level.
Supply from OPEC has also increased. Since March, the organisation has unwound production cuts of approximately 2.6 million barrels per day. Actual output growth, however, has been significantly lower, at around 0.85 million barrels per day. While OPEC’s spare capacity is already declining, its production nevertheless enters 2026 at an elevated level.
Taken together, these estimates point to a surplus throughout 2026, particularly during the first half of the year. To absorb such volumes, the futures curve would need to move into sufficient contango for storage economics to become attractive. Against this backdrop, it is likely to prove difficult for Brent crude to trade sustainably above USD 70 per barrel next year. This is especially true when considering the LNG liquefaction capacity projected by 2030, which implies an expansion of almost 50%—equivalent to bringing into operation roughly eight facilities comparable in scale to those of Saudi Arabia over the next five years.
Date of report: January 7th 2026