OPEC is more optimistic about the global economic recovery of 2022 and, as a result, believes that next year will be the one in which world demand for oil will exceed pre-pandemic levels. This is what emerges from the outlook released today.
From the report, it emerges that OPEC has revised upwards its estimates of global oil demand growth in 2022 to +4.15 million barrels per day, compared to +3.28 million barrels per day last month.
The cartel now predicts that, by 2022, world demand will jump accordingly to 100.83 million barrels per day.
However, OPEC at the same time revised downward the global oil demand outlook for the last quarter of 2021, citing the impact of Covid’s Delta variant and stating that a further economic recovery will be partially postponed to ‘next year.
OPEC has thus announced that it expects oil demand to average 99.7 million barrels per day in the fourth quarter of 2021, down from the 110,000 barrels per day forecast in its previous outlook.
Oil prices are up today, also in the wake of fears of the US supply: in particular the US National Hurricane Center (NHC), said that the tropical storm Nicholas of the Gulf of Mexico could be upgraded to hurricane in the coming days.