Kazakhstan export loss to ease global oil supply glut, Vitol executive says

SOUTH GOA: Kazakhstan is estimated to have lost more than 40 million barrels of crude exports from damage around the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), trader Vitol’s Asia head said on Wednesday, easing a global oil supply glut.

“The market has had to contend with a huge shut-in of the CPC Kazakh group, and so that has really had an impact on the immediate build up in stocks,” Kieran Gallagher told delegates at the Indian Energy Week conference.

Kazakhstan’s oil exports fell after Ukrainian drone attacks and stormy weather hampered operations at the CPC terminal while its biggest oilfield, Tengiz, suffered an outage this month.

Therefore, global crude oil stocks are expected to rise by about 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the first half of 2026, lower than the more than a million bpd forecast by many analysts, Gallagher said.

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The International Energy Agency forecast in its January monthly oil report that global oil supply would exceed demand by 4.25 million bpd in the first quarter.

Supply has risen faster than demand mostly because producer group OPEC+, comprising the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries plus allies including Russie, began boosting output in April 2025 after years of cuts. Other producers, such as the U.S., Guyana and Brazil, have also increased output.

OPEC+ has, however, paused output increases for the first quarter of 2026.