MOSCOW, January 18. /TASS/. Commercial oil reserves of the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in November 2021 amounted to 2.721 bln barrels, having decreased by 16 mln barrels, according to the January report of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
At this level, inventories were 389 mln barrels lower than a year earlier and 247 mln barrels below the five-year average.
At the same time, oil reserves of developed countries decreased by 12.7 mln barrels in November, while the balance of oil products decreased by 3.3 mln barrels.
In current volumes, oil reserves covered the needs of OECD countries for 60.7 days, which is 13.2 days less than a year earlier, and 3.6 days less than the five-year average.
The five-year average level of reserves is the main reference point in the OPEC+ agreement, which consistently reduces or increases oil production, depending on the state of the market.
At the same time, OPEC left unchanged its forecast for oil demand growth in 2021 and 2022 at 5.7 mln barrels per day (bpd) and 4.2 mln bpd, respectively, amid a moderate global economic recovery. Thus, at the end of 2021, demand reached 96.6 mln bpd, according to OPEC. In 2022, demand is expected to increase to 100.8 mln bpd.
Oil supplies from non-OPEC countries in 2022 will increase by 3 mln bpd, the organization's report said. At the same time, oil supplies from non-OPEC countries are expected to increase by 3 mln bpd in 2022. This forecast also remained unchanged from the previous estimate.
As expected, in 2022, oil supplies from non-OPEC countries will increase by 3 mln bpd to 66.7 mln bpd. The main growth drivers will be the United States and Russia, as well as Brazil, Canada, and Kazakhstan.