DUBAI: Saudi Arabia’s decision to postpone oil capacity expansion plans should not be interpreted as an assessment that demand for crude is falling, OPEC’s Secretary General said on Tuesday.
“First of all I want to be clear I cannot comment on a Saudi decision ... but this is in no way to be misconstrued as a view that demand is falling,” Haitham Al Ghais told Reuters in Dubai. The Saudi government on January 30 ordered state oil company Aramco, opens new tab to lower its target for maximum sustained production capacity to 12 million bpd, 1 million bpd below a target announced in 2020 and set to be reached in 2027.
Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest oil exporter and de-facto leader of the OPEC. OPEC raised its world oil demand forecasts for the medium and long term in its annual outlook published in October.
Its World Oil Outlook said it expects world oil demand to reach 116 million barrels a day (bpd) by 2045, around 6 million bpd higher than the previous year’s report.