According to foreign media reports, on March 31 local time, the OPEC Joint Technical Committee lowered its forecast for the growth of global oil demand in 2021 to 5.6 million barrels from the previous 5.9 million barrels.

At the meeting of the Joint Technical Committee held on March 31, OPEC Secretary General barjindo said that despite further positive progress in world vaccination and financial stimulus in the first quarter, the economic environment is still full of challenges, complexity and uncertainty. Baljindo said that the forecast of global crude oil demand in 2021 will be slightly adjusted, and the daily demand will increase by 5.6 million barrels. “It should not be forgotten that the average daily demand in 2020 dropped sharply by 9.6 million barrels.”

At present, the international oil price continues to fall after hitting the high point in the early stage, because although the progress of vaccination is accelerating, there is a very unbalanced phenomenon in the world, and the epidemic situation is accelerating in some parts of the world. In the United States, due to the relatively smooth progress of vaccination and obvious signs of economic recovery, according to the OPIs data of IHS Markit, gasoline sales have been 16% higher than the pre epidemic level.

However, due to the slow vaccination in Europe, the epidemic situation revived, and many countries implemented stricter blockades again, which greatly reduced the use of oil and gas. Kirduff, a partner of again capital, said the news from Europe made the oil market very uneasy and the epidemic situation worsened, which means that oil demand will be hit again and oil prices will be under pressure.

A source familiar with Saudi Arabia’s oil production policy recently revealed that Saudi Arabia is ready to push OPEC and non OPEC oil producing countries to extend the current oil production reduction policy to May and June to boost oil prices.

OPEC and non OPEC oil producing countries held a meeting on April 1. Four sources told Reuters last week that the new round of “city closures” caused by the epidemic may prompt the major oil producing countries to decide to extend their production reduction policies to may at the meeting. One of the sources said that Saudi Arabia hopes to extend the production reduction to June.

OPEC and non OPEC oil producers are now cutting production by about 7 million barrels a day, while Saudi Arabia voluntarily cuts production by an additional 1 million barrels a day. Last year, the output reduction of major oil producing countries was as high as 9.7 million barrels per day, accounting for about 10% of global crude oil supply.