RIYADH: Pundits today are optimistic. Their reaction to the current Libyan crude outage has been starkly different to what it was in February 2011, at the beginning of the Libyan crisis.

On February 22, 2011, when global energy ministers met in Riyadh formally to sign the new IEF charter, loss of supplies from Libya, under Qadhafi then, haunted the minds of most present there on the day.

Everyone from the then IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanka to US Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel B. Poneman and Charles Hendry, the then British Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change, were nervous.

The changing fundamentals of global energy balance over the last few years, seems to have taken out that sense of unpredictability. Markets have definitely spiked. War clouds hover over Syria. Egypt is in turmoil. And Libya, that was keeping everyone on toes then, is still suffering. Its crude output is now just a trickle of what it was earlier, producing a mere 150,000 bpd as compared to 1.6 million bpd earlier.

Yet, despite all this, sentiments are much different today — interestingly — on both sides of the divide. The international oil market is well balanced, Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi said Thursday. “Oil markets fundamentals are good. The market is well balanced and stocks remain within range,” he said in Seoul, adding that Saudi Arabia and other producers “remain willing and capable of meeting any additional demand.”

Al-Naimi also underlined that oil market stability has been improved by the availability of new output extracted from shale rock reserves. “We see new reserves (of shale gas) bring increased depth and stability for oil markets,” he told the meeting.

The oil market is well-supplied, Opec’s Secretary-General Abdalla El-Badri too said. The Opec Monthly Oil Report also stresses that the market remained adequately supplied.

And the IEA, the OECD energy watchdog, is also trumping the same tune. Global oil supplies look comfortable despite the massive outage in Libyan output and oil prices could see some downward pressure if sharp currency depreciation in emerging markets leads to softer demand, the IEA said.

“While the geopolitical storms in the Middle East and North Africa were yet to pass, easing fundamentals look set to lessen the pressure somewhat on market participants — at least for the next few months,” the IEA monthly oil report emphasised.

And what makes the scenario starkly different from February 2011, is the fact that IEA today is of the view that even if Libyan production remained disrupted, for the rest of the year, the winding down of seasonal field maintenance in the North Sea and the US Gulf of Mexico shall bolster supply in the fourth quarter of 2013.

“New North American production —including US light tight oil and Canadian synthetic crude — continues to surge. Saudi production is hovering near record highs, even as a seasonal dip in domestic air-conditioning demand looks set to free up more barrels for export,” the IEA added.

Maria van der Hoeven, the IEA executive director, too is of the opinion that the market is well supplied, given the expected fall in demand over the rest of the year.

And in comments to international press, good friend Antoine Halff, head of the IEA’s oil markets division also supported her view. “We have had some pressures on the markets, but going forward we think the situation is easing as refineries go into maintenance,” Halff added.

He also expected the industrialised countries to be able to replenish their stocks as demand falls. In its monthly report the IEA said stocks could match or even exceed their five-year average by the end of the year, even if Libya fails to produce any oil between now and the end of the year.

Times have definitely changed and so has the energy world too. And the biggest reason for pundits to stay calm and not nervous today — despite the outage — is the unravelling shale revolution.