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OPEC held firm to projections that global oil demand will keep growing for another decade, and said it would be dangerous to abandon fossil fuels.

World oil consumption will climb by 13 percent to reach 109,5 million barrels a day in 2035 and hold around this level for another decade, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries said in its annual World Oil Outlook. The forecast clashes with a widespread view in the petroleum industry that demand will hit a peak around the end of this decade as the threat of climate change spurs a switch to renewables.

World leaders will gather in Egypt next month for the next round of United Nations negotiations on global warming, known as COP27. OPEC Secretary-General Haitham Al Ghais reiterated the warning given at last year’s climate talks that a complete break with hydrocarbons is “potentially dangerous to a world that will continue to be thirsty for all energy sources.”

The organisation’s stance received some validation in the past year, as supplies of natural gas and other fuels failed to keep pace with the post-Covid rebound in demand following years of oil industry under-investment.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, and the ensuing disruption of natural gas flows, has posed a further complication for the low-carbon transition, as consuming nations turn to more polluting fuels such as oil products and coal as a substitute. – Bloomberg