OPEC + Joint Technical Committee expects a deficit in 2023

A document seen by Reuters on Thursday showed that the OPEC + joint technical committee expects a deficit in the oil market in 2023 of 300,000 barrels per day.

The committee, which held a meeting on Wednesday, expected demand to fall short of supply by 400,000 barrels per day this year, downwardly revising a previous forecast of 500,000 barrels after considering new demand assumptions.

The document showed that the committee expects the deficit to widen to 1.8 million barrels per day in the fourth quarter of 2023.

The committee’s assessment considered the production shortfall of some member states for the rest of 2022 and 2023.

Many OPEC and OPEC + countries cannot increase production due to the lack of investments in oil fields, as well as the sanctions imposed by the West on Iran, Venezuela and Russia. The coalition’s production of the member states was about three million barrels per day less than the quotas set for July.

The committee said that the market will remain scarce for the rest of this year and in 2023, adding that preliminary data for commercial oil stocks in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development will remain below the five-year average for the remainder of 2022 and through 2023.