EIA cuts global oil demand for 2021, 2022 due to travel curbs

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DUBAI
The global crude demand both for 2021 and 2022 will be lower than previously forecast on the concerns of travel restrictions extending into the next year.
This was reported by Khaleej Times while quoting the US Energy Information Administration as saying this. Despite the lower-than-expected demand surge, the EIA still foresees a 5 million bpd increase this year and another 3.6 million bpd in 2022 in worldwide consumption, putting the resulting tally at 101 million bpd.
With no clear end in sight to the pandemic and concerns growing over the spread of the Delta variant, the market concerns about oil demand impacts are fostering continued declines in the crude oil prices, the EIA noted in its “Short Term Energy Outlook” (STEO) released in September.
The EIA trimmed its Brent crude spot price estimate for 2021 by 10 cents/b to $68.61/b, while maintaining its 2022 estimate at $66.04/b. Similarly, the agency cut its 2021 estimate for WTI crude prices by 24 cents/b to $65.69/b and expects prices to fall further in 2022 to average $62.37/b.
The agency said steady draws on global oil inventories allowed oil prices to rise in the past year after plummeting at the onset of the pandemic, but “growth in production from Opec+, US tight oil, and other non-Opec countries will outpace slowing growth in global oil consumption and contribute to” oil price declines in 2022.
The agency sees Opec adding 1.4 million b/d over 2022, to reach a total of 28.34 million b/d, implying that the Opec+ deal will most probably be extended into 2023 and beyond.
According to the STEO, US oil production is seen to average 11.08 million b/d this year, while next year will see an increase to 11.72 million b/d. “In the September STEO, we revised our global liquid fuels consumption forecast down by 0.2 million barrels per day in both 2021 and 2022. The decreased consumption reflects a lower GDP forecast as well as expectations of lower consumption because of travel and other restrictions in response to increases in COVID-19 cases,” EIA said in its forecast.
The agency forecast Opec crude oil production would average 26.4 million b/d in 2021, down 0.1 million b/d from the August STEO, reflecting its expectation that Iran’s crude oil production will be lower in the second half of 2021 (2H21) than it previously expected.
“We expect Opec to produce 28.3 million b/d in 2022, down 0.3 million b/d compared with the August STEO. The downward revision to supply growth is driven by lower global oil demand growth, and we expect some producers to continue to restrain output to maintain relatively balanced oil markets in 2022,” EIA experts said.