The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Thursday slammed the International Energy Agency's (IEA) latest prediction of a peak in fossil fuel demand by 2030, reported Xinhua.
OPEC said this forecast is not "fact-based," and could threaten energy security by discouraging investments in oil and gas projects.
IEA executive director Fatih Birol said in an op-ed in the Financial Times on Tuesday that demand for three fossil fuels — oil, gas and coal — will peak by the end of this decade. The agency's estimates are based on "today's policy settings by governments worldwide," including the expansion of renewable energy and increasing use of electric vehicles, Birol wrote.
However, OPEC said in a strongly-worded statement on Thursday that "consistent and data-based forecasts" do not support the IEA's prediction, accusing the agency of "being ideologically driven, rather than fact-based."
"It is an extremely risky and impractical narrative to dismiss fossil fuels, or to suggest that they are at the beginning of their end … what makes such predictions so dangerous, is that they are often accompanied by calls to stop investing in new oil and gas projects," OPEC said.
"Such narratives only set the global energy system up to fail spectacularly. It would lead to energy chaos on a potentially unprecedented scale, with dire consequences for economies and billions of people across the world," OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais said in the statement.
According to OPEC, the IEA prediction also has not considered "the technological progress the (fossil fuel) industry continues to make on solutions to help reduce emissions." Neither has it acknowledged the vital role of fossil fuels, which "continue to make up over 80 percent of the global energy mix, the same as 30 years ago."
The oil-producer group said it would cooperate with all relevant stakeholders to foster dialogue to contribute to global energy stability.
CONFLICTING NARRATIVES
This is not the first spat between OPEC, which comprises 13 major oil-exporting countries, and the IEA, whose members mainly include oil-consuming nations such as the United States, Japan and some European countries.
The IEA, together with the U.S., Britain and other oil-consuming nations, has previously criticized production cuts by OPEC and its allies, a group known as "OPEC+". The IEA has accused OPEC+ of exacerbating the energy crisis and driving up inflation. OPEC has insisted that the output cuts were made to stabilize the oil market.
In Tuesday's op-ed, Birol advocated for faster energy transition, and said that peak fossil fuel demand by 2030 would be "a welcome sight." However, Al Ghais has on several occasions warned of the danger posed to global energy security by declining investments in the hydrocarbon industry, and called for energy transition in a "well-planned, inclusive, just and fair" manner.
In their latest monthly oil market reports, OPEC and the IEA also differed markedly on forecasts for global oil demand this year and next.
In its report published on Tuesday, OPEC expected world oil demand to rise robustly by 2.44 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2023, and by 2.25 million bpd in 2024, citing "solid global economic growth, amid continued improvements in China."
However, the IEA said in its September market report that although global oil demand would grow by 2.2 million bpd this year, growth would slow sharply to 1 million bpd next year as "the recovery runs out of steam and with efficiency gains, EV penetration and working from home further suppressing consumption."
- OPEC
- IEA’
- Fuel demand
Source: www.dailyfinland.fi
