According to foreign sources on March 14th, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released its monthly Oil Market Report on Thursday, which raised the global oil demand growth forecast for 2024 by 110,000 barrels per day from the February report. Raise the demand growth forecast for 2024 to 1.3 million barrels per day, compared to the estimated 1.2 million barrels per day in last month's report.

The reason for the IEA's increase in demand growth forecast is due to the improvement in the outlook for US oil demand and the interruption of the Red Sea trade flow, which has led to an increase in demand for marine fuel. The obstruction of Red Sea shipping has forced many ship operators to choose longer routes between Europe and Asia via the Cape of Good Hope in Africa.

Despite the upward adjustment of demand growth estimates, IEA's forecast is still much more conservative than OPEC's.

At the beginning of the week, OPEC stated in its monthly report that it expects global oil demand to grow strongly by 2.2 million barrels per day in 2024 and 1.8 million barrels per day in 2025.