(EnergyAsia, June 20 2012, Wednesday) — The world’s main petroleum cartel has kept its forecast for this year’s global demand to grow by 900,000 b/d to reach 88.7 million b/d.

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said despite the negative headlines concerning Europe and the US, the global economic outlook is stabilising and oil demand in the emerging economies remains strong while Japan is using more oil to offset the loss of its nuclear power capacity.

“US and European oil demand will contribute a large share of this uncertainty. While these two regions are squeezing oil demand, other Non-OECD regions are pushing for more oil consumption,” said OPEC’s latest monthly report.

“Furthermore, the Japanese shutdown of their nuclear plants is leading to more fuel and crude oil-usage in the power sector.”

Nevertheless, OPEC holds out the possibility that it might have to reduce its forecasts by between 200,000 b/d and 300,000 b/d later in the year given the uncertain outlook in the Western economies, doubts over the sustainability of Japanese demand and high retail pump prices in the major economies.

It noted that the OPEC reference basket price fell for the second straight month in May to US$108.07 a barrel, representing a decline of US$10.11 or 9.4%, the largest month-to-month loss since December 2008. Futures prices have fallen sharply in recent weeks on account of a massive liquidation of net-long speculative positions, heightened Euro-zone concerns, a weakening economic outlook, and a steady rise in global crude stockpiles.

OPEC held its forecast for the world economy to grow by 3.3% for 2012. It clipped its US growth forecast by 0.1 percentage point to 2.2%, maintained that the Euro-zone economy would shrink by 0.4% and raised its forecast for Japan’s to grow by 2%, up from 1.8% previously.

“China is showing signs of being affected by the global slow-down, but remains unchanged at 8.2% due to expected stimulus measures. India experienced a significant slow-down in the first quarter and 2012 has been revised down to 6.4% from 6.9%,” said OPEC.

The cartel expects world demand for its crude in 2012 to average 29.9 million b/d compared with 30.1 million b/d last year.