The odds of an oil price spike this year are much higher than the prevailing consensus in the market, according to a new report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The oil market has been tightening rapidly this year, due to OPEC+ cuts taking supply off of the market, outages in Iran and Venezuela, and a slowdown in U.S. shale. But forthcoming regulations from the International Maritime Organization (IMO) could provide an additional jolt, particularly as global inventories decline against the backdrop of a tightening market. “Now, with distillate inventories at the low end of the range, we see an analogy to 2007/08 ... (full story)