UAE sees oil demand recovering by late 2021, early 2022

UAE energy minister Suhail al-Mazrouei said today that he is optimistic that global oil demand will return to the levels seen before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic by the end of this year, or early in 2022 at the latest.

"I am more optimistic than the numbers, because I am confident that the [Opec+] group will continue working hard to ensure that we are balancing the market faster than we anticipated. We have seen that the recovery has been, I think, better than anyone was expecting," al-Mazrouei said.

"As we are going into the first months of the year, I am optimistic that by the end of the year, or beginning of 2022, we will see that balance," he said.

In its latest forecasts, the Opec secretariat projected global oil demand will rise by 5.9mn b/d to 95.89mn b/d this year. This is around 4mn b/d below the 99.76mn b/d demand seen in 2019, and more than 6mn b/d below the 102mn b/d of demand that Opec had forecast for 2021 before the pandemic.

By Nader Itayim