The Organisation of Oil Producing Countries (OPEC) has said that it expects global oil demand to end the year slightly ahead of what it had expected, after demand spiked in India after a power blackout in July and grew slightly in the USA.
“World economic turbulence did not slow oil consumption seasonality from its summer trend,” OPEC said in a statement. “Not only did US oil consumption grow slightly, but Indian oil demand grew drastically.”
OPEC, which is responsible for around 33% of the oil in circulation around the globe, says it expects 88.74m barrels per day to be used worldwide through 2012, up from the 88.72m bpd it had originally predicted.
Demand in 2013 will be slightly higher than this year, but will grow at a slower rate, the organisation is predicting. “The economic picture is vague and there are plenty of potential uncertainties going forward,” it said. OPEC said it expects demand to reach 89.55bn bpd in 2013, up from its previous forecast of 89.52m bpd.
Despite forecasting a rise in demand while oil prices are already high, OPEC allayed industry fears by saying that the world’s oil supply is plentiful, and that there will be no rush to the pumps. It said that should an oil producing country find itself in the position where a shortage is possible, it could sidestep any issues by utilising some of the extra refining capacity that exists in many countries around the world.
“Any product shortage could be readily met by higher utilisation of idle refinery capacity in a market with abundant crude supplies,” it said.
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