ConocoPhilips: Oil Demand Will Return And Grow

ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) is the latest to issue forward-looking statements regarding the global oil demand forecast, stating that global oil demand would indeed return to 100 million barrels per day—and keep growing from there, according to Reuters.

Next year, however, ConocoPhillips expects “quite a bit of uncertainty next year,” according to Senior Vice President Dominic Macklon, who was answering questions with Raymond James.

This projection on global oil demand is different than BP’s, who sees the coronavirus pandemic having a long-term effect on oil demand, compounded by climate concerns, and that oil demand may never again recover to those seen in 2019.  

It is, however, in line with Gazprom Neft’s projections, which sees full oil demand recovery by the end of next year. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak had an even rosier outlook, seeing oil demand recovering fully by the second quarter of next year.

OPEC and the International Energy Agency (IEA), however, have more pessimistic views of global oil demand, with both stating that they do not expect that global oil demand will ever fully recover from being crushed by the coronavirus pandemic.

“The path ahead is treacherous,” the IEA said in its latest oulook, adding that the market outlook was “even more fragile” than expected.

Macklon sees U.S. shale output falling by 4 million barrels per day in 2022.

For Conoco specifically, it sees next year’s capital spending as below what it had planned to spend this year, which was $6.6 billion.

Conoco has not joined its peers in laying off staff, but it had halted all fracking crews amid the pandemic. It is in the process of returning two of those fracking crews back into the field, Macklon has said.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

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