OPEC comments in its latest monthly report
The cartel views the outlook for the global oil market to be "somewhat bearish" for the rest of the year amid slowing economic growth and ongoing global trade tensions. That comes despite their view that supply in the market will be tighter than previously thought.
In the report here, OPEC raised its assessment of consumption for this year and next by 50k barrels per day and also trimmed its projections for non-OPEC supplies by 40k barrels per day in 2019 and by 90k barrels per day in 2020.
With fears of the global economy starting to enter a period of more profound slowdown/weakness, it will no doubt take its toll on oil demand over the next year or so. In turn, that will put further downside pressure on prices in the bigger picture.
That will definitely raise some concern among OPEC members and create more incentive for markets to expect additional and bigger production cuts to keep prices supported.
The not-so positive outlook here has seen oil prices pare gains somewhat with WTI crude falling from $55.40 to $54.80 currently.
