Middle East oil demand could grow by nearly 5 percent in 2010, outpacing a modest recovery in global energy demand as the world’s top oil exporting governments continue spending petrodollars to boost economies, analysts said.
Oil export income has fuelled expansion in the region, and given governments the cash to spend their way through the global economic downturn. Cheap subsidised fuel has encouraged rapid energy consumption growth that some regional governments have struggled to meet.
OPEC’s top two producers Saudi Arabia and Iran would drive more than half the Middle East’s oil demand growth.
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The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) expected demand growth in 2010 in the region of 320,000 barrels per day (bpd) or 4.5 percent, to reach a total of 7.55 million bpd, said Eduardo Lopez, a senior oil demand analyst at the IEA.
That was over twice the IEA’s forecast 2010 global oil demand growth of 1.8 percent, the first growth year in three years after recession cut fuel use.
PFC Energy estimates product demand to grow about 3.85 percent in 2010. (Reuters)
