OPEC on June 14 said it expects rising demand for its crude oil, forecasting robust global economic growth in the months ahead and projecting for the first time that Russia’s production will fall year on year. In its closely watched monthly oil market report, the producer bloc kept its forecast of world demand steady at 100.29 million b/d for 2022 from its May estimate — basically back to pre-pandemic levels — but lowered its estimate of non-OPEC supply to 65.74 million b/d, a drop of 230,000 b/d. The revision was largely due to a downgrade in Russian liquids output, now estimated at 10.63 million b/d for 2022, a drop of 250,000 b/d from the May projection. It is the first acknowledgment by OPEC that Russia, its key ally in a production agreement forged in 2017, will see a contraction in output year on year due to sanctions imposed by […]