OPEC's preliminary forecast for 2027 is out, predicting that oil demand will continue to grow steadily.

OPEC’s first detailed assessment for 2027 shows that the organization expects global oil demand to continue growing at a steady pace.

According to Bloomberg, a report from the OPEC Secretariat indicates that the organization expects global oil consumption in 2027 to increase by 1.3 million barrels per day, slightly lower than this year's increase, with average consumption reaching 107.9 million barrels per day.

The speed of demand growth is about twice as fast as OPEC predicts its competitors' supply will grow. This means that unless OPEC continues to restore output, the global oil market may remain tight next year.

However, OPEC's demand forecasts have been proven overly optimistic in the past:

In 2024, OPEC cumulatively lowered its demand expectations by 32% over six consecutive months. At the end of 2023, the organization predicted a record inventory shortfall, but this did not ultimately happen.

Although OPEC’s demand forecasts for this year and 2027 are largely in line with views from some institutions such as Goldman Sachs, its estimates for last year’s demand clearly diverged from mainstream industry views.

Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and the International Energy Agency (IEA), based in Paris and advising consumer nations, forecast 2025 demand growth between 800,000 and 900,000 barrels per day; whereas OPEC assesses last year's demand growth at 1.3 million barrels per day.

Last year, under Saudi Arabia's leadership, some key OPEC+ nations unexpectedly and rapidly restored previously suspended output, despite signs that supply in the Americas was surging, making the global market relatively well supplied.

These countries have agreed to pause production increases in the first quarter of this year, and will evaluate plans for the rest of the year on a monthly basis.

The report also shows that in December, total output from the OPEC+ alliance decreased by 238,000 barrels per day to 42.83 million barrels per day, mainly due to a drop in Kazakhstan's output. A key crude oil export terminal in that country was attacked, causing production to decrease by 237,000 barrels per day to 1.52 million barrels per day.

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