OPEC Has Cut Oil Demand Growth by 0.2 Million Barrels Six Months Running

VIENNA — OPEC now expects the world to burn only 200,000 more barrels of oil a day this year than last, a seventh of the growth it forecast at the start of the year, and it has moved the missing demand into 2027.

The producers’ group cut its 2026 demand-growth forecast to 0.2 million barrels a day from 0.4 million in its monthly report on Tuesday, TASS reported, putting total demand at 105.72 million barrels a day. The OECD economies are expected to shrink by about 0.2 million barrels a day, non-OECD countries to add 0.4 million. For 2027 it raised growth to 2.55 million barrels a day from 2.36 million, according to CGTN; TASS rounds the figure to 2.6 million.

Brent futures rose above $107 a barrel on Monday, their first time over that level since September 29, TASS reported without giving a cause. The market has had plenty of supply news to react to: EH reported on Monday that Trump ruled out Iran strikes until November as Hormuz tankers burned. Against that, OPEC is telling the market that demand is weaker than it thought, and its own members are pumping more.

The pattern in the revisions is what stands out. OPEC saw 2026 demand growth of 1.4 million barrels a day in April and 1.2 million in May, TASS and Xinhua reported, and every monthly report since has taken exactly 0.2 million more off it: 1.0 million in June, 0.8 million in July, 0.6 million in August, 0.4 million in September and now 0.2 million. Over the same months its 2027 figure rose from 1.5 million to 2.55 million. Demand is not being written off, in OPEC’s telling, only moved, and the accounts reviewed do not say why the cuts arrive in identical steps.

Haitham Al-Ghais, OPEC’s secretary general, put it that way a day before the report. Speaking at the WPC Energy Congress in Riyadh, he said demand growth this year was now 400,000 barrels a day against 1.4 million at the start of the year, Arab News reported. He pointed to lower Chinese imports after earlier stockpiling, strategic reserve releases, especially in OECD countries, and slowing demand, and said demand “has been deferred to 2027” and that “there will be pent-up demand next year,” according to TASS. The numbers he quoted do not match the report’s. He gave 1.7 million barrels a day for 2027, while the report published a day later says about 2.6 million, and 0.4 million for this year against the report’s 0.2 million. None of the accounts reviewed explains the gap, and OPEC’s report could not be retrieved in full from its own site, so the figures here come from TASS and CGTN accounts of it.

Proportion shows how much rests on the rebound. By EH’s arithmetic from OPEC’s figures, growth of 0.2 million barrels a day on 105.72 million is under 0.2 percent, while 2.55 million would be about 2.4 percent, more than twelve times the pace. OPEC is a producers’ group, not a neutral statistician, and a number that large for a year that has not started is the hardest kind to check from outside. The assumptions behind it, including what it assumes about the Strait of Hormuz and the oil price, were not part of the accounts reviewed.

Supply is already moving. OPEC+ members bound by the output agreement raised crude production by 956,000 barrels a day in September, TASS reported from the report, to 30.753 million, still 5.453 million below their 36.206 million baseline. Saudi Arabia did most of the work, after a fall in June that Xinhua reported: output rose 744,000 barrels a day to 8.001 million, roughly three-quarters of the group’s net increase. Iraq added 386,000 to 3.920 million. Kuwait fell by 140,000 to 1.766 million, with no reason given in the accounts reviewed, and Russia by 38,000 to 8.643 million. The individual changes add up to about 977,000 barrels a day, not 956,000, and TASS does not explain the difference.

Riyadh’s increase came while the kingdom was under fire. EH reported that Houthis claimed strikes on two Aramco sites as airlines cancelled Riyadh flights. Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told the same congress that “we never had an energy crisis as long as this one,” and said “I don’t want to brag about how much we are exporting,” adding that friends would be “shocked” when the figures come out, Arab News reported. No export figure was given, so how the extra 744,000 barrels reached buyers is not stated. Al-Ghais called the kingdom’s East-West Pipeline “the best example of providing an insurance policy for energy security.” Oman’s output was virtually unchanged at about 939,000 barrels a day, and Iran’s fell 99,000 to 1.957 million.

A former member is also pumping more. TASS notes that the United Arab Emirates withdrew from OPEC and OPEC+ on May 1, yet its output rose 86,000 barrels a day in September to 3.917 million, outside the total OPEC+ reports for the agreement. OPEC’s forecast of weak demand now sits beside a supply picture in which its largest producer and a former member both pumped more.

What OPEC has not said, in the accounts reviewed, is what its 2027 rebound assumes about the Strait of Hormuz: whether the strait is open, closed or contested by the time the pent-up demand is supposed to arrive.