Reuters, WASHINGTON
Strategic petroleum releases helped avert a sharper rise in oil prices as a result of the war in the Middle East, but the global economy faces significant downside risks if a fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran does not hold, IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said on Friday last week.Quick releases of strategic reserves and changes in production by refiners had helped avert even steeper increases in oil prices, with just 3 percent of the global oil removed from the market instead of the 10-15 percent initially forecast, Gourinchas said.However, risks would rise and countries would have less oil in reserve to cushion further cuts in supply if the ceasefire fell apart and hostilities resumed, Gourinchas said in an interview as he leaves the IMF at the end of this month to return to the University of California, Berkeley.
IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas speaks during an interview at the IMF Headquarters in Washington on Friday.
The French economist, who has long said that growing geopolitical tensions could lead to a more fractured global economy, gave no details about a fresh forecast to be released by the IMF on July 8.He said the global lender could return to offering a baseline forecast — instead of the three scenarios that it released in April. It was the second time during his tenure that the Fund chose to skip a baseline forecast, the first being in April last year after US President Donald Trump upended global trade with tariffs against imports from most countries in the world.
