Previously, we reported that energy agencies have been growing more bearish with their forecasts on oil demand growth with four experts including IEA and OPEC Secretariat giving divergent views.
Alarmingly, the normally bullish U.S.-based Energy Information Agency (EIA) has cut its forecast in each of the past nine months.
The EIA’s latest growth prediction of a decline of 420,000 barrels per day (kb/d) in what experts refer to as the call on OPEC (i.e. global demand minus non-OPEC supply) in the current year, a level 1.87 million barrels per day (mb/d) lower than its July 2022 forecast.
Other agencies expect lackluster growth: Standard Chartered sees “the call” growing by just 63,000 b/d, 1.41mb/d less than its July 2022 forecast, while the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects growth of 400kb/d, 2.326mb/d below its July 2022 forecast.
The upshot of it all is that all four agencies at least expect some growth, though they can’t seem to come close to finding consensus on the magnitude.