The Otas News Agency reported on May 13 that OPEC further lowered its global oil demand expectations in the context of the new coronary pneumonia epidemic. The organization reported in May that global oil demand in 2020 is expected to decrease by 9.07 million barrels per day, which is 2.23 million barrels higher than the previous forecast. Among them, oil demand in developed countries decreased by 5.2 million barrels per day (an increase of 1.2 million barrels from the previous forecast); oil demand in countries outside the OECD decreased by 3.9 million barrels per day (an increase of 1 million barrels from the previous forecast). Global oil demand is expected to be 91.1 million barrels per day in 2020. OPEC said that the decline in global demand for large oil-consuming countries will show up in the second quarter of 2020. It is possible to alleviate the decline in demand by 2020 by easing the anti-epidemic restrictions and stimulating economic growth.
The report predicts that the spread of the New Coronary Pneumonia epidemic will also affect oil supply. In particular, non-OPEC countries ’daily output in 2020 will be reduced by 3.5 million barrels to 61.5 million barrels. It is predicted that in 2020, only Norway, Brazil, Guyana and Australia will have a slight increase in oil production. The report pointed out that in March 2020, the commercial oil reserves of OECD countries exceeded 3 billion barrels, nearly 90 million barrels higher than the average of the past five years. As the "OPEC +" agreement expired on March 31, oil production increased strongly in April. In April 2020, the daily oil production of OPEC member countries increased by 1.8 million barrels to 30.4 million barrels, mainly from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. The new agreement was reached on April 12 and entered into force on May 1. According to the new agreement, "OPEC +" will reduce output by 9.7 million barrels per day on May 1, of which Saudi Arabia and Russia will reduce production by approximately 2.5 million barrels per day. The first round of production cuts will last for two months, after which the production cuts will gradually be lowered.
This article is transferred from [Gate Chemical Network]
