OPEC is very close to achieving its mission to draw oil inventories down to their five-year average, but the ongoing U.S.-China trade spat is a risk to oil demand growth expectations this year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its Oil Market Report on Friday. The Paris-based agency kept its global oil demand growth estimate unchanged from last month’s report—at 1.5 million bpd for this year. “However, there is an element of risk to this outlook from the current tension on trade tariffs between China and the US,” the IEA noted. The trade dispute is “introducing a downward risk to the forecast,” said the agency which sees oil demand growth possibly dropping by around 690,000 bpd if global economic growth were reduced by 1 percent on the back of widespread increase in trade tariffs. “Oil demand would suffer the direct impact of lower bunker consumption and lower inland […]