According to foreign news on October 12, due to slowing economic growth, China's epidemic prevention blockade and high inflation, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) lowered its estimate of global oil demand growth on Wednesday, the fourth reduction since April. At the same time, the estimate of demand growth next year was also lowered.

The monthly report released by OPEC on Wednesday shows that the oil demand is expected to increase by 2.64 million barrels per day in 2022, 460,000 barrels per day lower than the previous estimate.

The prospect of demand reduction provides additional support for the production reduction action decided by OPEC last week. This action is the largest production reduction action since 2020, aimed at supporting the oil market, which was criticized by the United States.

OPEC said in the report: "The global economy has entered a period of deepening uncertainty and increasing challenges at a time when inflation continues to be high, major central banks tighten monetary policy, sovereign debt levels in many regions are high, and supply problems continue."

For next year, OPEC expects that oil demand will increase by 2.34 million barrels per day, down 360,000 barrels per day from the previous estimate.

OPEC has been increasing its oil production for most of this year in order to withdraw from the record production reduction implemented after the sharp drop in demand caused by the epidemic in 2020.

They decided to increase the oil production target by 100,000 barrels per day in September 2022, of which about 64,000 barrels per day will come from 10 OPEC member countries.

The report shows that OPEC output increased by 146,000 barrels per day in September to 29.77 million barrels per day, mainly from Saudi Arabia and Nigeria.

However, due to insufficient investment in oilfields by some member countries, OPEC's oil production is far below the requirements of the OPEC Agreement.

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