Taking advantage of the brief visit to India of Mr. James Burkhard, Managing Director, IHS CERA, USA, PetroFed, in its continuing series of Guest Lectures and Thought Leadership Programmes, organised his lecture on ‘The Oil Market after the Great Recession’ on July 21, 2009 at New Delhi. The session was chaired by Mr. B.N. Bankapur, Director (Refineries), IndianOil who spoke on the current oil and economic scene in the world and introduced the speaker.

Mr. James Burkhard, Managing Director of CERA's Global Oil Group, leads the team of CERA experts that analyse and assess upstream and downstream business conditions and strategies. His expertise covers geopolitics, world economic conditions, and global oil demand and supply trends.   Mr. Burkhard served on the US National Petroleum Council (NPC) committee that provided recommendations on US oil and gas policy to the US Secretary of Energy.

Mr. Burkhard dwelt on, what is called, the Long Aftershock and analysed the impact on future supply growth of the current oil price and development cost environment. According to his analysis, the 2009 oil demand will only be marginally above that of 2004 when it was 82.6 mbd. The Long Aftershock, he said, may result in 7.6 mbd of oil supply growth at risk of development over the next five years due to lower prices and high costs. The refining capacity expansions and reduction in demand for products will result in refining over capacity for a number of years, he added.

An intense interaction followed his presentation in the Q & A Session.