IEA Oil Market Report – November 2026:

• World oil demand is forecast to fall by 2.7mln bpd in 2026, to 102.3mln bpd, before rebounding by 2mln bpd in 2027.
• Global oil supplies surged by 2.3mln bpd to 105.4mln bpd in October, lifting output by an extraordinary 5.3mln bpd since August.
• Following an increase of 3mln bpd in September, global oil supply rose by a further 2.3 mb/d to 105.4 mb/d in October on lofty Gulf exports despite ongoing attacks on energy infrastructure and tankers. The higher flows underpin a sharp upward revision to 4Q26 supply, while 2027 has been lowered due to constrained Iranian shipments.
• Global refinery runs fell by 1.3mln bpd M/M to a seasonal low of 81.3mln bpd in October and are forecast to rebound to 84.7mln bpd in December.
• For now, the severe tightness in product supply, especially for diesel, remains the overriding concern of the broader market and consumers. Persistent attacks on Russian energy infrastructure continue to choke off the country’s diesel supplies to international markets, adding to losses from the Middle East.

Monthly agency oil reports usually matter less for the headline balance than for the revision pattern: a large demand downgrade set against a supply surge points to a looser crude narrative, but the report itself separates that from the binding constraint, which is products rather than crude. In comparable episodes, ample crude availability has coexisted with strong distillate markets when refinery capacity, export logistics, sanctions or attacks restrict the movement of product, leaving diesel cracks and prompt product timespreads firm even while crude sentiment is capped. The transmission channel is therefore through gasoil and diesel differentials, refinery margins, freight and insurance costs, and the ability of Gulf exports to keep flowing, not through flat price alone. Actors to track are the usual set: the IEA's revisions against OPEC and US weekly data, Russian export integrity under infrastructure attack, Iranian shipment constraints, and whether refinery runs rebound from seasonal lows as scheduled. The typical sequence is that crude first absorbs the surplus story, then the market tests whether product tightness eases through higher runs, normalized tanker flows or softer export risk; if those do not follow, product strength has historically persisted longer than the crude balance would imply. As an agency assessment rather than a policy decision, the signal is about which part of the barrel is scarce.