The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has basically maintained its forecast for the global oil market. Although Saudi Arabia and Russia's production reduction measures will continue until the end of this year, the organization still predicts an increase in demand.
OPEC, headquartered in Vienna, stated in a monthly report on Thursday that it expects oil demand to increase by 2.4 million barrels per day this year and a further 2.2 million barrels per day in 2024, which is consistent with September's forecast.
The organization has made a slight adjustment to its supply expectations, raising its expectations for non OPEC oil producing countries' supply growth in 2023 by 100000 barrels per day to 1.7 million barrels per day. The organization has maintained its forecast for supply growth in 2024 at 1.4 million barrels per day.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) also released its oil market report on Thursday, but emphasized the significant risks posed to the oil market by the current Israeli conflict and escalating tensions in the Middle East. OPEC did not mention this conflict in its report.
OPEC employs a large number of analysts to assess and predict global oil demand. Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producer of OPEC.
OPEC has raised its global economic growth forecast for 2023 from 2.7% to 2.8%, but it is expected that global economic growth will slow down to 2.6% next year.
OPEC cited second-hand sources as saying that Saudi Arabia's oil production increased by 82000 barrels per day in September, which seems to be inconsistent with the country's public production reduction measures this year. Last month, Saudi Arabia reiterated its position of reducing oil production by 1 million barrels per day by the end of the year.
OPEC cited second-hand sources as saying that Nigeria's oil production increased by 141000 barrels per day in September compared to the previous month. According to second-hand sources, overall, OPEC crude oil production increased by 273000 barrels per day to 27.75 million barrels per day in September.