The OPEC+ group was likely betting on robust demand during the peak summer driving season when it decided to start accelerating the oil production hikes in May. The market proves it has been right.
At the end of the second quarter and the start of the third quarter, demand growth will not lag supply growth materially, according to analysts.
OPEC estimates that global oil demand will grow by 1.3 million barrels per day in both 2025 and 2026, which is in stark contrast with the demand estimate of the International Energy Agency. The IEA sees oil demand growth this year at less than 1 million bpd. Although demand rose by 990,000 barrels daily over the first quarter, the IEA expects this to slow considerably to just 650,000 bpd over the remainder of the year.
The global oil market has been rocked in recent months by the move from eight core OPEC+ nations to relax supply restraints at a faster-than-expected pace, potentially adding supplies just as trade frictions menace demand. The surprise shift has been presented as a bid by the cartel to reclaim market share from rival drillers, as well as punish its own quota cheats.
A week ago, the 39th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting was held via videoconference, chaired by Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al-Saud, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy. According to a press release, the group pledged to “develop a mechanism to assess the maximum sustainable production capacity (MSC) of member countries that will be used as reference for 2027 production baselines”.
Kazakhstan’s national oil and gas company KazMunayGas is looking to borrow cheaper funds from overseas debt issues, including bonds denominated in Chinese yuan, the firm’s chief executive Askhat Khassenov told Bloomberg.
“We looked at all options. Currently there is a possibility to sell dim sum, panda bonds,” Khassenov said in an interview with Bloomberg published on Wednesday.
Saudi Aramco cut the price of its main oil grade to buyers in Asia after OPEC+ continued with its outsized output increases for a third month.
The Saudis led the producer group over the weekend in agreeing to raise production by 411,000 barrels a day in July, a third straight month of outsized hikes. In tandem with US President Donald Trump’s trade war, the supply increases have helped drive benchmark oil prices about 12% lower in London since early April.
There have been two significant OPEC+ decisions in the past week, analysts at Standard Chartered Bank, including the bank’s commodities research head Paul Horsnell, said in a report sent to Rigzone late Tuesday by the Standard Chartered team.
It is highly unlikely that anyone with even a modicum of intelligence has lost money in the past ten years or so by trading against the predictable thinking of those in charge of Saudi Arabia’s oil policy. Quite the reverse, in fact, with enormous profits available from the failures of the enormously well-flagged and exceptionally predictable strategy of the 2014-2016 and 2020 Oil Price Wars — launched by the Kingdom with the intention of destroying or disabling the U.S. shale oil sector, as analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order. As OPEC members and their toxic companion in the OPEC+ formation, Russia, mull keeping oil production on the high side of recent historical averages, the key question for the oil markets is — surely they are not going to launch another oil price war using the same strategy as failed twice before?
West Texas Intermediate gained 2.8% to settle near $63 a barrel after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies agreed on Saturday to add 411,000 bpd of supply in July though some members objected, including Russia. With a handful of countries lobbying for a pause in July, banks are now split on how many more hikes will come in subsequent months.
A turbulent week for global energy markets saw oil prices slide amid OPEC+ uncertainty and escalating U.S.-China tensions.