The 2018 Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) World Oil Outlook (WOO) has revealed that the total primary energy demand is set to expand by a robust 33% between 2015 and 2040, driven predominantly by developing countries, which see almost 95% of the overall energy demand growth.

The 2018 OPEC World Oil Outlook (WOO) was launched recently in Algiers, Algeria.

First published in 2007, the WOO offers a thorough review and assessment of the medium- and long-term prospects to 2040 for the global oil industry, as well as analysis of various sensitivities that have the potential to impact the petroleum industry in the years ahead.

Launching the Outlook, Dr. Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo, OPEC Secretary General, said that the past year had been a historic one for the Organization, as well as the global oil industry, with the historic ‘Declaration of Cooperation.’

Barkindo added that “the importance of these recent developments, specifically in terms of helping achieve sustainable market stability, was vital across all timeframes.

This year’s publication, the 12th edition, presented by Dr.Ayed Al Qahtani, Director of Research Division, OPEC, highlights the industry’s various linkages, and considers developments in areas such as the global economy, energy demand, oil supply and demand, both in the upstream and downstream.

This year’s WOO launch, alongside the 10th Meeting of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC), is part of the celebrations of the 2nd Anniversary of the seminal Algiers meeting (the 170th (Extraordinary) Meeting of the OPEC Conference) that took place on 28 September, 2016.

Some specific highlights from this year’s outlook include prognosis that; all forms of energies will be required in the future; natural gas will witness the largest demand growth in absolute terms, and renewables, the largest growth in percentage terms and that long-term oil demand would be 111.7 mb/d in 2040 following a forecast on this for the second consecutive year.