The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has in its latest Monthly Oil Market Report revised down world oil demand in 2021, citing lower economic growth in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member countries and non-OECD countries as the primary basis for lowering total world oil demand by 0.08mbpd in 2021, to reach 96.84mbpd.
Compared to estimated 90.29mbpd for world oil demand in 2020, OPEC now sees world oil demand recouping 6.5mbpd next year from this year.
Accroding to the report, the 2021 demand figure is still below 2019’s 99.76mbpd.
At the same time, OPEC cited that its non-OPEC liquids supply forecast for this year was revised up by 0.31mbpd, compared to its estimate for 2020 provided last month.
Overall, OPEC is now expecting non-OPEC liquids supply to contract by 2.4mbpd this year.
The data showed that most of the decline would be in Russia, at a loss of 1.1mbpd even as the other significant loss in oil supply for 2020 comes from the United States, which is expected to come in at 11.45mbpd, from 12.24mbpd last year and expected to grow by 700,000bpd for 2021, to 11.52mbpd.
The biggest challenge facing OPEC, the report stated, was its production.
While OPEC continues to move its outlook for world oil demand down, it is also continuing to wage an internal battle over compliance with its production cuts.
For the month of September, OPEC member countries managed to lower its production from 24.153mbpd in August to 24.106mbpd in September.
But Nigeria, among other countries, is still over-producing.
In July, its quota was 1.412mbpd, at that time, the country produced an average of 1.467mbpd.
August’s production was the same, despite Nigeria being tasked like Iraq with additional cuts, and September’s production dipped slightly by 6,000bpd to 1.461mbpd, OPEC reported.
