The Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) issued its 2024 World Oil Outlook forecasting significant growth in global energy demand between now and 2050.
OPEC raised its forecasts for world oil demand for the medium and long term in an annual outlook, citing growth led by India, Africa and the Middle East and a slower shift to electric vehicles and cleaner fuels.
Reuters reports that the 2024 World Oil Outlook (WOO) sees energy demand, “set to expand by 24% in the period to 2050, driven by significant expansion in the non-OECD region. The Outlook sees the need for an expansion in all energy sources, with the exception of coal. For oil alone, we see demand reaching over 120 million barrels a day by 2050, with the potential for it to be higher. There is no peak oil demand on the horizon.”
Bloomberg comments that, “OPEC doubled down on forecasts that global oil demand will keep growing to the middle of the century, an outlier view that scientists say would lead to climate catastrophe. World oil consumption is set to increase by 17.9 million barrels a day, or roughly 18%, to 120.1 million per day by 2050, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said in its annual long-term outlook. It raised estimates covering the next two decades from last year’s report.”
“Future energy demand is found in the developing world due to increasing populations, middle class and urbanization,” said OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais during the report’s launch in Brazil, a country with which the group is seeking to form closer ties.
At the WOO launch held in Brazil, OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais said, “Future energy demand is found in the developing world due to increasing populations, middle class and urbanization… Over the past year, there has been further recognition that the world can only phase in new energy sources at scale when they are genuinely ready.” In the WOO foreward, Al Ghais wrote, “There is no peak oil demand on the horizon. Over the past year, there has been further recognition that the world can only phase in new energy sources at scale when they are genuinely ready.”
“By 2030, world oil use will increase by 11.1 million barrels a day to average 113.3 million per day, it forecast. That’s 1.3 million a day more than in last year’s outlook, which had raised estimates from the previous year. India will be the single-biggest contributor to growth, adding 8 million barrels a day by 2050, more than three times the increase projected for China, OPEC said. Petrochemicals, road transport and aviation will drive the global expansion, and by 2050, cars with internal combustion engines will still compose more than 70% of the fleet. OPEC said its increasingly bullish outlook reflects that, in light of the 2022 energy shock, advanced economies are re-evaluating the transition from fossil fuels as they acknowledge “the need for energy security.”” OPEC Sticks to Outlier View on Oil Demand Growing Through 2050 [Bloomberg]
“Even within the petroleum industry, OPEC’s estimates represent a fringe view-point. Forecasts from BP Plc, trading giant Vitol Group, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., consultants Wood Mackenzie and the International Energy Agency all indicate that oil demand may stop growing within the next decade as the world shifts to electric vehicles and renewable energy… [OPEC] has acknowledged the dangers posed by global warming and argued that the oil industry should be part of the solution — even attending the COP climate summit for the first time last year. Yet its flagship report provided little detail on how carbon capture — its favored solution for fossil fuel emissions — can overcome the significant technical and commercial hurdles to mass adoption.”
OPEC Sticks to Outlier View on Oil Demand Growing Through 2050, Bloomberg
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