The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) maintained its expectations for relatively strong growth in global oil demand in 2024 and 2025, noting that flexible economic growth and strong air travel will support the use of fuel in the summer months. The organization said today, Wednesday, in a monthly report on its website: 'Global demand for oil will rise by 2.25 million barrels per day in 2024, and 1.85 million barrels in 2025, without change from its expectations last month.' The report added, "Strong transportation and expected air travel in the Northern Hemisphere during the summer holiday season are expected to boost demand for transportation fuels and drive growth in the United States." "Expectations for strong demand growth in 2024 are more mixed, partly due to differences in the pace of the world's transition to clean fuels." The OPEC+ alliance, which brings together OPEC and allies including Russia, has been implementing a series of production cuts since late 2022 to support the market. The alliance agreed on June 2 to extend its recent cuts, amounting to 2.2 million barrels per day, until the end of September and to gradually cancel them starting in October. OPEC also raised its forecast for global economic growth this year to 2.9 % from 2.8 %, and said that there is a possibility of increasing this percentage, pointing to the momentum that occurred this year outside the developed countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. OPEC said, "The momentum of economic growth in the major economies remained resilient in the first half, and this trend supports the path of comprehensive positive growth in the near term." Source: National Iraqi News Agency