India The New Catalyst For Oil Demand, Libya The "Wild Card": RBC

India recently posted a four million bpd consumption rate.

With a recent consumption rate of four million barrels per day (bpd) and demand growth at a ten year high, India is the next catalyst for the oil market, according to Helima Croft, managing director and global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets.

Croft, who cited figures supplied by the International Energy Agency, told CNBC, "We think India is roaring right now and will be a key driver of demand."

Croft made the remarks while discussing the larger issue of "near term choppiness" in the global market due to oversupply and persistent problems in countries such as Nigeria and Venezuela, which she said were putting downward pressure on crude prices.

Although Nigeria recently ended an oil and gas workers' strike and repaired pipelines damaged by militant attacks (which were said to bolster the chance of the country increasing its crude output to 2.2 million bpd this month), attacks in the Niger Delta have apparently resumed, with two blasts reported over the weekend.

Venezuela's latest attempt to revive its decimated oil production capabilities comes in the form of state oil company PDVSA launching talks to issue $2.5 billion in securities to settle outstanding invoices to service providers. 

Meanwhile, President Nicolas Maduro has dismissed debt default rumours (which respected analysts view as a distinct possibility) as a right-wing conspiracy.

Croft also said Libya is contributing to near-term market choppiness: she called the country a "wild card" in terms of additional short-term supply, noting that if its eastern terminals reopened, it will mean "a couple hundred thousand additional barrels on the market that would be another leg lower in terms of prices."

Left unmentioned is Canada, which the Toronto-Dominion Bank says is going through its worst downturn in activity on record due to the Alberta wildfires and prolonged low oil prices. 

The bank this week released figures showing that the cumulative annual percentage contraction in real output projected for 2015 to 2016 exceeds even the 2008 global financial crisis in magnitude.

Croft concluded that despite on-going near-term issues, RBC expects the supply and demand picture to improve in the latter half of 2016, with prices in the mid-$50s by the end of the year: "We think this market is balancing and we think we will have moved out of the product glut story by then.

"We remain cautiously constructive on demand; we do not see this going over a cliff and we are not petrified of some fall off in Chinese demand."

RBC's end-of-2016 oil price prediction is echoed by 51 percent of respondents to its recent survey of 600 energy investors and CEOs: they believed oil will be between $50 and $60, while 17 percent said $60-plus and 23 percent said between $40 and $49.