Asia’s oil demand is growing in the autumn, too, whereas major importers like China keep stockpiling crude, so OPEC+ was right to continue boosting supply, Alexander Dyukov, chief executive at Russian oil producer Gazprom Neft, said on Thursday.
“Global oil consumption rises in the summer. Typically, demand in Asia continues to rise in the autumn, too,” Russian news agency TASS quoted Dyukov as saying at an energy forum in Russia.
“Moreover, a number of importers, including China, are filling their strategic crude oil reserves. That’s why oil is in demand,” the head of the oil arm of Gazprom said.
Early this month, the eight OPEC+ producers – Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman – tapped the 1.65 million barrels per day (bpd) cuts announced in April 2023. The producers will return 137,000 bpd of these cuts to the market in October, “in view of a steady global economic outlook and current healthy market fundamentals, as reflected in the low oil inventories,” OPEC said.
Gazprom Neft has the technical capacity to increase production if OPEC+ quotas are further raised, Dyukov commented on the alliance’s policies and his company’s ability to raise output.
“We respond to changes in OPEC+ quotas and increasing production. We have the technical capacity to do so,” the executive said.
Gazprom Neft expects growth in both production and refining by the end of the year, Dyukov added.
Apart from Russia, OPEC also sees robust oil demand growth this year, mostly from Asia.
Last month, the world’s top crude exporter, Saudi Aramco, expressed a very bullish view on demand in the second half of the year, with president and CEO Amin Nasser saying, “Market fundamentals remain strong and we anticipate oil demand in the second half of 2025 to be more than two million barrels per day higher than the first half.”
Analysts, however, expect the OPEC+ output hikes and growing production from South and North America to create a glut on the market later this year and early next year, and sink oil prices below $60 per barrel.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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