A report showed that the OPEC+ alliance expects a surplus of 1.9 million barrels per day in 2022, an increase of 600,000 barrels per day from previous estimates, amid expectations of a slowdown in oil demand growth this year.
The report, which was prepared before the meeting of the joint technical committee of “OPEC +” scheduled to be held today, also expected that oil stocks in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development during the last quarter would slightly exceed the average in 2015-2019, reports a local Arabic daily quoting Reuters.
The revision of the estimates reflects expectations of weaker growth in oil demand, which was adopted by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in its monthly report on crude for April.
OPEC now expects global oil demand to grow in 2022 by 3.67 million barrels per day, down 480,000 barrels per day from its previous forecast.
The organization cited the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, rising inflation with the rise in crude oil prices and the re-emergence of the mutated Omicron strain of the Corona virus in China, as reasons for adjusting the forecast.
