The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Tuesday (August 12) slightly raised its forecast for crude oil demand in 2026 to an average of 106.52 million barrels per day (bpd), an increase of 100,000 barrels per day compared to the previous month’s estimate.
According to Lusa, this increase corresponds to 1.2% more than this year’s demand.
In its monthly report, OPEC reinforced an optimistic view on the global crude market evolution, supporting the production increases it has been implementing since April to reverse the voluntary cuts adopted in 2023.
The report keeps this year’s demand at 105.14 million bpd — 1.29 million bpd higher than in 2024 — unchanged from the previous report, though it highlights expectations for a considerable rise in fuel consumption for heating during the cold season in the Northern Hemisphere.
“In anticipation of the upcoming winter (in the Northern Hemisphere), a typical increase in demand for heating fuel is expected, which will raise the needs (for oil) in that region,” the organization’s experts note, while emphasizing that these prospects are subject to weather uncertainty. With these figures, the projected annual global consumption growth for next year is 1.38 million bpd, also 100,000 bpd above the estimate in the previous report.
In the industrialized countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the increase will be only 0.1 million bpd and 0.2 million bpd in 2024 and 2025, respectively, while it will be 1.2 million bpd in each of those two years for the rest of the countries combined.
OPEC bases its calculations on the expectation that “the global economy will maintain a stable growth trajectory, supported by the solid and consistent momentum observed in the first half of 2025.”
“The global economic growth forecast for 2025 was slightly revised upwards to 3.0%, while for 2026 it remains at 3.1%,” improving prospects in line with the latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts for the United States, the Eurozone, and China, but maintaining the forecast levels from one month ago for India, Brazil, and Russia.
On August 3, OPEC and its allies (OPEC+) decided to increase production by 547,000 bpd starting September 1, completing the reinstatement of 2.2 million bpd they had withdrawn from the market in 2023 to support crude oil prices.
The increase, which started in April and accelerated in the following months, is being supported by eight of the 22 oil producers in the alliance: Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman. Although the additional barrels raise fears of oversupply and thus pressure prices downward, OPEC+ states the market can absorb them thanks to the strong performance of the global economy.
However, analysts see a strategic shift in OPEC+ to regain market share through lower prices rather than supporting prices by steep production cuts.
Much of what they cut since 2022 has been replaced by production from their rivals, i.e., producing countries not members of the OPEC+ alliance.
In Tuesday’s report, OPEC forecasts that “rival supply” will total 54.01 million bpd in 2025 and rise to 54.74 million bpd in 2026, a figure reduced by 100,000 bpd compared to the estimate from one month ago.
The U.S., Brazil, Canada, and Argentina will be the main producers contributing to the increase in non-OPEC+ supply.
Meanwhile, the 22 OPEC member countries together extracted 41.95 million bpd in July, 335,000 bpd more than in June, according to “secondary sources” — i.e., estimates from independent institutes — published in the report.
The increase is less than the 411,000 bpd agreed by the group for that month and includes production from Venezuela, Libya, and Iran, three OPEC members exempt from the production limit commitment for various reasons.
Source: Diário Económico
