OILY OUTLOOK

Petrochemical projects offer hope amid a bearish industry outlook

Zainab Mansoor

The oil and gas sector carries a bearish outlook on the back of sluggish global growth, forecasted at 3 percent for 2019, the lowest since 2008-09.

Although the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in its latest outlook in October, predicted a 3.4 percent growth for 2020 on the back of marked economic improvement in certain emerging markets, growth could be downplayed by a slowdown in markets such as China and the US as well as geopolitical strains, it said.

The numbers from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) also corroborate a slowdown, with global demand for OPEC crude estimated to average 29.6 million bpd in 2020, a drop of 1.2 million bpd from 2019. The OPEC group’s production in September was 1.32 million BPD lower month-on-month at 28.49 million bpd, primarily due to the attack on Saudi Aramco’s oil facilities.