OPEC maintains forecast for strong growth in global oil demand by 2025, trade policies do not affect economic expectations.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) stated in its monthly report on Wednesday that global oil demand is expected to continue to grow relatively strongly in 2025, with the recovery of aviation and road transportation continuing to support oil consumption. At the same time, potential trade tariffs are not expected to have a substantial impact on economic growth. OPEC expects global oil demand to increase by 1.45 million barrels per day in 2025 and by 1.43 million barrels per day in 2026, with these forecasts remaining consistent with the previous month. OPEC's demand forecasts are at the higher end of industry expectations, and they believe that oil demand will continue to grow in the coming years, unlike the International Energy Agency (IEA), which believes that oil demand may peak within this decade as the world transitions to clean energy. In the report, OPEC pointed out that the trade policies of the new administration of U.S. President Trump have increased market uncertainty, which could lead to supply-demand imbalances that do not reflect the true market fundamentals. However, OPEC has not adjusted its economic growth forecast for 2025 as a result. OPEC stated in the report, "It is still necessary to observe how potential tariffs and other policy measures will impact and to what extent, but as of now, these factors are not expected to have a substantial impact on current economic growth assumptions." After the release of the report by OPEC, oil prices remained relatively stable, with Brent crude prices falling slightly to around $76 per barrel. Compared to OPEC, the IEA has a more conservative forecast for oil demand growth in 2025, with an increase of only 1.05 million barrels per day, lower than OPEC's expectations. However, the difference in forecasts for demand growth in 2025 between OPEC and the IEA is relatively small, narrowing compared to their forecasts in 2024 when the discrepancy reached a historic high mainly due to their differing views on the pace of energy transition. Since the end of 2022, OPEC and its allies (OPEC+) including Russia have implemented production cut measures multiple times to support the market. According to the current plan, OPEC+ will gradually increase oil production from April 2024 to maintain market balance.