Global oil appetite ‘set to grow in 2015’

VIENNA - Agence France-Presse

The Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries sees global oil demand soaring in 2015, mainly due to rise of appetite in developed countries.

Global world oil demand is due to increase further next year thanks in part to resurgent growth in developed countries, OPEC said July 10 in its first forecast for 2015.         

The Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries, which pumps a third of the world’s crude, predicted demand would top 92.35 million barrels per day (mbpd), up 1.33 percent from 2014.         

The growth is due to a recovery in demand for the first time since 2010 among advanced economies in the OECD region, particularly in the United States, OPEC said in its monthly report.         

The bulk of the demand will come as per usual from non-OECD countries however, especially China and the Middle East.

Still, OPEC sounded a word of warning, saying that the development and use of alternative sources of fuel, could cut into its 2015 forecast.         

Demand in advanced Asian economies, for example, was expected to drop as nuclear plants, shut down in the wake of Japan’s 2011 Fukushima disaster, start up again.         

For 2014, the 12-member oil cartel kept its demand forecast almost unchanged from June at 91.13 mbpd.