Short-Term Energy Outlook

Global liquid fuels

Brent crude oil spot prices averaged $59 per barrel (b) in January, up $2/b from December 2018 but $10/b lower than the average in January of last year. EIA forecasts Brent spot prices will average $61/b in 2019 and $62/b in 2020, compared with an average of $71/b in 2018. EIA expects that West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil prices will average $8/b lower than Brent prices in the first quarter of 2019 before the discount gradually falls to $4/b in the fourth quarter of 2019 and through 2020.

EIA estimates that U.S. crude oil production averaged 12.0 million barrels per day (b/d) in January, up 90,000 b/d from December. EIA forecasts U.S. crude oil production to average 12.4 million b/d in 2019 and 13.2 million b/d in 2020, with most of the growth coming from the Permian region of Texas and New Mexico.

Global liquid fuels inventories grew by an estimated 0.5 million b/d in 2018, and EIA expects they will grow by 0.4 million b/d in 2019 and by 0.6 million b/d in 2020.

U.S. crude oil and petroleum product net imports are estimated to have fallen from an average of 3.8 million b/d in 2017 to an average of 2.4 million b/d in 2018. EIA forecasts that net imports will continue to fall to an average of 0.9 million b/d in 2019 and to an average net export level of 0.3 million b/d in 2020. In the fourth quarter of 2020, EIA forecasts the United States will be a net exporter of crude oil and petroleum products by about 1.1 million b/d.

Global Petroleum and Other Liquids
	2017	2018	2019projected	2020projected
^aWeighted by oil consumption. ^bForeign currency per U.S. dollar.
Supply & Consumption	(million barrels per day)
Non-OPEC Production	60.70	63.22	65.79	67.92
OPEC Production	37.33	37.28	36.10	35.65
OPEC Crude Oil Portion	32.07	31.97	30.74	30.49
Total World Production	98.03	100.49	101.89	103.56
OECD Commercial Inventory (end-of-year)	2,843	2,863	2,957	3,062
Total OPEC surplus crude oil production capacity	2.03	1.48	1.97	2.53
OECD Consumption	47.23	47.63	47.99	48.24
Non-OECD Consumption	51.32	52.33	53.46	54.69
Total World Consumption	98.55	99.96	101.45	102.93
Primary Assumptions	(percent change from prior year)
World Real Gross Domestic Product^a	3.1	3.1	2.8	2.9
Real U.S. Dollar Exchange Rate^b	-0.8	0.6	0.4	-2.4

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Related Tables
Table 2. Energy Prices	PDF
Table 3b. Non-OPEC Petroleum and Other Liquids Supply	PDF
Table 3c. OPEC Crude Oil (excluding condensates) Supply	PDF
Table 3d. World Petroleum and Other Liquids Consumption	PDF

Related Figures
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil price	XLSX	PNG
World liquid fuels production and consumption balance	XLSX	PNG
Estimated unplanned crude oil production outages among OPEC and non-OPEC producers	XLSX	PNG
World liquid fuels consumption	XLSX	PNG
World liquid fuels consumption growth	XLSX	PNG
World crude oil and liquid fuels production	XLSX	PNG
World liquid fuels production and consumption	XLSX	PNG
OPEC surplus crude oil production capacity	XLSX	PNG
OECD commercial stocks of crude oil and other liquids (days of supply)	XLSX	PNG

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