December 20, London: Global oil benchmarks are expected to close the week down more than 3 percent as a result of Friday’s decline in oil prices due to concerns about demand growth in 2025, particularly in China, the world’s largest importer of crude.
By 4:09 p.m. Saudi time, Brent crude futures dropped 32 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $72.56 a barrel. At $69.06 a barrel, US West Texas Intermediate oil futures also fell 32 cents, or 0.5 percent. In its annual energy outlook published on Thursday, Sinopec, the state-owned refiner in China, stated that as demand for gasoline and diesel declines, China’s oil consumption will peak by 2027 and its crude imports could peak as early as 2025.
According to Emril Jamil, senior research specialist at LSEG, “as the market moves toward year-end, benchmark crude prices are in a prolonged consolidation phase weighed by uncertainty in oil demand growth.”
In order to boost prices and calm anxious markets due to frequent adjustments of its demand growth outlook, he continued, OPEC+ will need supply discipline. For the fifth consecutive month, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, or OPEC+, recently lowered its growth projection for the world’s oil consumption in 2024.
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