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A tightening oil balance will lead to a price for oil around $80 per barrel by 2020, according to the forecasts of the International Energy Agency (IEA), published in its World Energy Outlook (WEO-2015).

“An extended period of lower oil prices would benefit consumers but would trigger energy-security concerns by heightening reliance on a small number of low-cost producers, or risk a sharp rebound in price if investment falls short,” the report said.

WEO-2015 also examines the conditions under which prices could stay lower for much longer.

Since prices at today's levels push out higher-cost sources of supply, such a scenario depends heavily on the world's lower-cost producers: reliance on Middle East oil exports eventually escalates to a level last seen in the 1970s, according to the report.

Such a concentration of global supply would be accompanied by elevated concerns about energy security, with Asian consumers – the final destination of a huge share of regionally-traded oil – particularly vulnerable, the report said.

Developing Asia, a region in which India takes over from China as the largest source of consumption growth, is expected to be the leading demand centre for every major element of the world's energy mix in 2040 – oil, gas, coal, renewables and nuclear.

By 2040, China's net oil imports are nearly five times those of the United States, while India's easily exceed those of the European Union, IEA believes.

IEA forecasts that the world energy demand will grow by nearly one-third between 2013 and 2040, with the net growth driven entirely by developing countries.

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