A plunge in American petrol stocks to a 16-year low has prompted the International Energy Agency (IEA) to call on Opec to open its taps and bring more crude oil to the market before the summer.

The IEA’s warning and continued disruption to Nigerian oil exports pushed the price of Brent crude up almost a dollar to $66.67.

Continued strong petrol demand in America is confounding the oil market and yesterday the Paris-based agency pointed to 930,000 barrel per day (bpd) oil and product stock draw in the first quarter of this year.

That followed an 890,000 bpd stock draw in the fourth quarter of last year. The agency is predicting a 1.6 million bpd seasonal jump in oil product demand next month, requiring a significant increase in supplies that the IEA states “looks unlikely to happen”.

Meanwhile, the agency points to the continuing supply threats to Nigerian exports, a high petrol-yielding crude that in May suffered a further 220,000 bpd cut, on top of the continuing 600,000 bpd loss of capacity over last year.

“Reports of an imminent restart of 350,000 bpd of Forcados production seem premature in the current environment,” the IEA said, concluding that it “anticipates a thirsty market in the months ahead”.

Africa’s oil output suffered a further setback this week after a fire on Thursday at a Total-operated oilfield in Congo-Brazzaville killed two people and caused a shutdown of about 60,000 bpd. Nigeria auctioned oil exploration licences on yesterday, but drew interest mostly from little-known investors. Many potential bidders were scared off because the sale of 45 exploration blocks comes less than three weeks before the Government is due to hand over to the next administration, raising doubts over whether the deals would stand in the long term.

The IEA forecasts that nonOpec supplies of crude will increase by one million bpd in this year, recovering from last year’s weak uplift of just 0.4 million bpd and a marginal decline in nonOpec output in 2005.

Overall, world demand for oil is expected to rise by 1.8 per cent in 2007, an increase of 1.5 million bpd compared with last year’s rise in demand of 0.7 million bpd. The agency’s greater optimism about nonOpec oil output, after two years of disappointment, is based on new production from Britain, Canada and Australia.

However, the IEA admitted that its growth assumption is based on “normal” operating conditions. The previous year’s underperformance was due to unforeseen disruptions and delays, it argues.

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