Oil prices anticipate tight market by mid-2021

U.S. petroleum inventories are falling towards more normal levels as the glut earlier this year caused by volume warfare among OPEC+ members and the first wave of epidemic-driven lockdowns is gradually absorbed.

Falling inventories are likely to herald a tighter production-consumption balance and a cyclical upswing in both spot prices and calendar spreads next year, which are already being anticipated by oil traders in rising futures prices.