Energy Supply Demand Balance

Use This Skill When

• The user wants a balance view for oil, gas, refined products, or another energy market.
• The task is to judge whether the market is tightening, balanced, or oversupplied.
• The analysis needs to connect supply, demand, inventories, and spare capacity into one regime view.

Required Inputs

• market: crude, natural gas, refined products, LNG, power, or another defined energy market
• geography: global, regional, or local market definition
• time horizon: current quarter, next 6 months, or 12-month balance view
• supply data: production, exports, outages, OPEC or policy actions, project additions
• demand data: end-use demand, industrial activity, transport demand, weather, seasonality
• inventory data: commercial inventories, floating storage, strategic reserves when relevant
• If some data is missing, state which side of the balance is less certain and keep the conclusion directional.

Workflow

1. Define the market boundary and benchmark units.
2. Build the supply stack: base production, disruptions, incremental supply, and spare capacity.
3. Build the demand stack: structural demand, cyclical demand, weather, and seasonal adjustments.
4. Compare supply and demand against inventory behavior.
5. Explain whether price action is consistent with the underlying physical balance.
6. Conclude with the likely regime: deficit, balance, or surplus.

Output Requirements

• Focus on physical market balance rather than macro commentary alone.
• Distinguish structural versus temporary supply and demand drivers.
• Include inventory and spare capacity rather than using production alone.
• State what would move the balance from one regime to another.

Output Template

Quality Checks

• Confirm supply, demand, and inventories are all covered.
• Check that temporary outages are not treated as structural supply loss.
• Verify seasonality is handled explicitly where relevant.
• Make sure the regime conclusion follows from the physical balance, not only from price.

Guardrails

• Do not infer balance from price action alone.
• Do not mix global and regional balances without saying so.
• Do not ignore inventories and spare capacity.
• Do not fabricate production or demand figures.

Example Prompts

• Build a 6-month supply-demand balance for global crude.
• Explain whether the US natural gas market is tightening or loosening.
• Show the key drivers of the current diesel balance in Europe.