Peak oil demand is not on the horizon, OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais said on Thursday, blasting the International Energy Agency’s prediction that global oil demand will peak before 2030.
Some net-zero scenarios suggest that oil should not be part of a sustainable energy future, Al Ghais wrote in a column for EA Forum.
“This narrative was repeated only yesterday when the IEA published its Oil 2024 report in which it once again stated that oil demand would peak before 2030,” he said.
“It is a dangerous commentary, especially for consumers, and will only lead to energy volatility on a potentially unprecedented scale.”
In its report on Wednesday, the IEA said that oil demand growth is set to slow in the coming years and global demand will peak in 2029, while rising production will lead to a major glut this decade.
World oil demand is being tempered by the clean energy transition, says the IEA, which has been a vocal proponent of a faster energy transition in recent years.
All previous peak demand scenarios have been proven wrong, the top OPEC official said in his column.
“The IEA suggested that gasoline demand had peaked in 2019, but gasoline consumption hit record levels in 2023 and indeed continues to rise this year,” he wrote.
“Of course, we all want to lower emissions, but at the same time, we all need ample, reliable, and affordable supplies of energy. The two cannot be decoupled.”
Billions of people have yet to get access to energy, while oil demand continues to increase, Al Ghais said.
The official slammed the IEA’s scenario of peak oil demand before 2030, saying “This is an unrealistic scenario, one that would negatively impact economies across the world.”
“It is simply a continuation of the IEA’s anti-oil narrative. Given the real trends we see today, we do not see peak oil demand by the end of the decade,” OPEC’s secretary general said.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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