Global oil demand will reach 100 million bpd later this year, “much sooner” than previously anticipated, OPEC’s Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo said an event on Wednesday, in a sign that the cartel expects global oil demand will continue to be strong for the rest of the year.
“The world will attain the 100 million barrels a day mark of consumption later this year, much sooner than we all earlier projected. Therefore stabilizing forces which create conditions conducive to attracting investments are essential,” Reuters quoted Barkindo as saying at an oil and power conference in Cape Town, South Africa.
OPEC’s priority is to ensure stability in oil prices that would encourage the industry to return to investing, the OPEC chief noted.
OPEC’s latest Monthly Oil Market Report from August projects that this year total oil demand will reach 98.83 million bpd, with oil demand growth at 1.64 million bpd, revised down by 20,000 bpd from the July assessment, mainly due to weaker-than-expected oil demand data from Latin America and the Middle East in the second quarter. For 2019, OPEC forecasts world oil demand to grow by another 1.43 million bpd, also revised down by 20,000 bpd from the previous month’s assessment. Total world consumption for 2019 is expected at reach 100.26 million bpd, reaching the 100-million-bpd mark in the third quarter of 2019.
The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Oil Market Report from August says that the global growth outlook still looking “solid for now” at 1.4 million bpd, but the growth figure has so far been heavily influenced by high demand in the first quarter this year.
In the latest report last month, the Paris-based agency revised up its 2019 demand growth outlook slightly upwards by 110,000 bpd, to 1.5 million bpd, “but there are risks to the forecast from escalating trade disputes and rising prices if supply is constrained,” it warned.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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