By Rania El Gamal and Olesya Astakhova
DUBAI/MOSCOW (Reuters) – OPEC and its allies led by Russia will meet on Tuesday to discuss production policy amid upbeat forecasts for energy demand despite concerns about new coronavirus spikes in India, Brazil and Japan.
The group, known as OPEC+, will hold its joint ministerial monitoring committee (JMMC) meeting on April 27 instead of April 28 as planned earlier, according to a source and an OPEC+ document seen by Reuters.
On Monday, OPEC+ kept its forecast for global oil demand growth for this year unchanged, projecting it to rise by 6 million barrels per day (bpd) for 2021 after the biggest ever fall of 9.5 million bpd due to the pandemic.
The group said in a report that despite the more than one billion COVID-19 vaccine doses that have been administered globally, it was concerned that the most recent surge in new virus cases in India, Brazil and Japan may derail recovering demand for oil.
(GRAPHIC: OPEC+ Oil Market Balances – https://graphics.reuters.com/OIL-OPEC/nmopaarbzpa/chart.png)
Oil prices rebounded on Tuesday after falling in the previous session, with gains capped by growing concern about fuel demand in India, the world’s third-biggest crude importer. [O/R]
India, which has set a world record in daily COVID-19 cases, ordered its armed forces on Monday to help tackle surging new infections that are overwhelming hospitals.
The OPEC+ report also said it expects commercial oil stocks to reach 2.95 billion barrels in July, taking them below the 2015-2019 average, and to remain below that average for the rest of the year.
(GRAPHIC: OECD Commercial Oil Stocks – https://graphics.reuters.com/OIL-OPEC/xegvbxgeavq/chart.png)
It said it saw stocks at about 70 million barrels below the average for the whole of 2021, a more optimistic outlook than its previous forecast of 20 million below the average.
(Reporting by OPEC team, writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov, editing by Louise Heavens)
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