Posted on Leave a comment

OPEC still optimistic about oil demand growth

World

Addressing the Economic Commission Board of OPEC at its 141st meeting, OPEC boss Haitham Al Ghais said that he expected robust growth in the demand for crude oil.

This includes both the remainder of 2024 and 2025, thanks to recent relative resilience in the global economy.

Al Ghais told the special session:

“For 2024, oil demand growth is at 2.2 mb/d, with total global demand anticipated to average 104.5 mb/d.”

He added that despite this growth being forecasted to slow down, the global demand for crude oil would still see a year-on-year increase of 1.8 million barrels per day (mb/d) to take it to an average of 106.3 mb/d.

OPEC is currently the main player in the OPEC+ deal to limited oil production. While this does include many non-OPEC members, it doesn’t include countries like the US, where companies like ExxonMobil, the maker of the Mobil Pegasus gas engine oil, continue to scale up shale oil production.

While markets have some concerns about higher interest rates staying for longer than expected and impacting the demand for oil, OPEC’s recent monthly report speculated that the global economy could perform better than expected if monetary policies around the world are eased later this year, saying:

“Despite certain downside risks, the continued momentum observed since the start of the year could create additional upside potential for global economic growth in 2024 and beyond.”

Despite the optimism about economic growth, OPEC+ is widely expected to keep its production cutbacks in place for now.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.