OPEC revises downwards its oil demand forecast for 2022 and 2023

The OPEC revised slightly downward its forecasts for oil demand growth for 2022 and 2023, according to a report published this Monday, which points to China’s anti-covid policy and an unstable context.

“The growth forecast for world oil demand for 2022 is revised downward by 0.1 million barrels per day (mbd), to 2.5 mb/d,” indicates the cartel of oil-exporting countries in its monthly report for November .

Total oil demand would now be 99.6 million barrels per day per year.

The authors of the report explain that the demand in the third and fourth quarters was “revised downwards by the Zero Covid policy in Chinapersistent geopolitical uncertainties and lower economic activity”.

In the second quarter, demand was finally revised slightly upwards, driven by better-than-expected figures in the main consumer countries of the OECDthe Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, based in Paris.

For 2023, OPEC is less optimistic than in October, forecasting demand growth of 2.2 mb/d (a decrease of 0.1 mb/d), to 101.8 mb/d.

The growth in demand for oil” will be challenged by “uncertainties related to economic activity, measures against Covid-19 and geopolitical developments,” OPEC analyzes.

In a study on the situation of world reserves, OPEC noted “the apparent shift from a deficit to a surplus in terms of oil supply” due to a reversal of the trend in the second and third quarters.