OPEC: Oil market outlook highly uncertain

Recently, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) stated in its monthly market report that the agency maintained its forecast for global oil supply and demand basically unchanged. Factors such as the new crown pneumonia epidemic in Asia and the Western curb on Russian oil exports have made the outlook for the energy market highly uncertain. 

In the monthly market report, OPEC slightly lowered its forecast for global oil demand, and also slightly adjusted its forecast for oil supply, but did not make any revisions to its forecast for global economic growth. OPEC said a number of considerable uncertainties, from the course of the Russia-Ukraine conflict to a G7-led plan to cap Russian oil prices, have cast a shadow over global oil supplies, which analysts fear could further disrupt global oil prices. oil supply. OPEC left its forecasts for economic growth and oil demand largely unchanged, and the body warned that the EU faced the threat of "blocking additional energy supplies". This is an apparent reference to the EU's impending plan to ban imports of Russian oil, threatening to worsen the European economy and push the region into recession.

OPEC lowered its forecast for global oil demand growth this year by 100,000 barrels per day to 2.5 million barrels per day. OPEC also lowered its forecast for oil demand growth in 2023 by 100,000 bpd to 2.2 million bpd. OPEC made minor adjustments to its forecast for oil supply from non-OPEC producers. It cut its forecast for non-OPEC oil supply growth in 2022 by 30,000 bpd to 1.9 million bpd. For 2023, OPEC raised that growth forecast by 20,000 bpd to 1.54 million bpd.