Soaring oil use for power generation in Europe and the Middle East will boost crude consumption for the rest of the year, the International Energy Agency said on Thursday, as it increased its global demand forecast despite signs of a wider economic slowdown.
Paris-based IEA, which is primarily funded by OECD members, said record European prices for natural gas were spurring “substantial” gas-to-oil switching. It lifted its demand forecast for 2022 by 380,000 barrels a day.
“These extraordinary gains, overwhelmingly concentrated in the Middle East and Europe, mask relative weakness in other sectors, but will propel demand higher by 2.1mn b/d to 99.7mn b/d in 2022 and by a further 2.1mn b/d to 101.8mn b/d in 2023,” it said in its monthly oil report.