The IEA today further downgraded global oil demand for this year and is confident that this and the additional contribution from major Middle East producers will avoid a deficit caused by falling Russian exports.

In the monthly report on the oil market, quoted by Lusa, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reduced the demand projections made in April by 70,000 barrels per day, after having cut the March projections by 260,000 barrels.

The main reason is the sharp slowdown in Chinese consumption due to restrictions to stem the pandemic, which translates into 890,000 fewer barrels per day in the second quarter than had been estimated just a month ago.

Also weighing on consumers around the world is the effect of rising oil prices and, even more so, the supply problems of some fuels (such as diesel in Europe) due to the stoppage of imports from Russian refineries.

In the end, the agency estimates that world average crude oil consumption in 2022 will be 99.4 million barrels, or 1.8 million barrels more than last year.

This growth has been concentrated in the first three months of the year due to the lifting of restrictions adopted to curb the pandemic in advanced economies. In this first quarter, the increase in consumption was 4.4 million barrels per day on a global scale.

In the fourth quarter, however, the organization's experts predict that demand will be 230,000 barrels per day lower than in the same period of the previous year.

Part of this contraction is explained by the blow dealt to the Russian economy by its international isolation, which has already begun to make itself felt, for example with a 13% drop in kerosene consumption for aircraft, despite increased military needs for the invasion of Ukraine.

The number of flights in Ukraine dropped from almost 11,000 per day in February to only 3,000 per day in April.

On the production side, sanctions are being felt in Russia, although somewhat less than the IEA had predicted.

In April, according to its data, Moscow put 9.1 million barrels per day on the market, 900,000 less than in March.

This trend is expected to continue in May, with a cut of another 600,000 barrels per day, which would mean 1.6 million less than in February, when the war began.

The reduction could be more than two million in June and close to three million in July, especially if the European Union adopts the Russian oil embargo plan.

If these figures, about which there is great uncertainty due to the rapidly evolving situation, are confirmed, Russian oil production for this year as a whole could average 9.6 million barrels per day, which would be the lowest since 2004.

The IEA notes that within the cartel formed by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, the main one of which is Moscow, only Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have significant margins to increase production this year and compensate for falling Russian exports.