LONDON, April 13 Reuters The full impact of sanctions and buyer aversion to Russian oil will take full effect from May onwards, the International Energy Agency said on Wednesday.

Still, lower demand amid a COVID19 surge in China, output increases from OPEC producers and beyond along with the largest ever draw on emergency oil storage by the United States and its IEA member allies ought to prevent any sharp deficit, it said.

For now, we assume April losses will grow to an average 1.5 million barrels per day bpd for the month as Russian refiners throttle back further and buyers shy away, the Parisbased agency said in its monthly oil report.

From May onwards, close to 3 million bpd could be offline as the full impact of a widening customerdriven voluntary embargo on Moscow comes into effect.

The Russian shutin is proceeding more slowly than the IEA had predicted last month when it saw the 3 million bpd loss taking effect from April.

Lockdowns to prevent the spread of coronavirus in China along with lowerthanforecast demand in the first quarter especially from the United States caused the IEA to lower its global oil demand forecast for the year by 260,000 bpd.

Reporting by Noah Browning; editing by Jason Neely

Source Reuters