Exploring OPEC's 2050 oil demand outlook
How OPEC expects energy use to change between now and 2050
OPEC recently published the 2024 version of its World Oil Outlook 2050 report.
One surprising data point?
OPEC “only” expects world oil demand to rise from 102.2 million barrels per day in 2023 to 120.1 million barrels per day in 2050.
True, OPEC is expecting world oil demand to rise when many other organizations are predicting it to fall.
For example, the International Energy Agency (IEA) believes that if the world continues on its current trajectory, oil demand in 2050 will fall below 100 million barrels per day. If instead the world collectively honors the pledges that have already been made by government and industry, the IEA expects oil demand to fall toward 50 million barrels per day in 2050.
The point is that OPEC’s view stands out in being much more bullish on future oil demand than almost any other publicly available projection.
Even in OPEC’s case, oil demand will only grow at a 0.6% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2023 to 2050, well below the average growth rate of the global economy, which is around 3%. And interestingly, oil demand growth is front-loaded, with a 1.3% CAGR through 2029 and then a 0.3% CAGR the rest of the way to 2050.
This is notable, because even OPEC’s relatively bullish view still suggests oil demand growth will pretty much vanish beyond this decade.
In this post, I want to look into the assumptions OPEC is making around its forward-looking view of global oil demand. We’ll see where oil demand will be strongest and weakest geographically, and how these strengths and weaknesses interact to yield OPEC’s overall view.
Global oil demand, population, and per capita oil demand
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