Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.12
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
Upsides for oil prices are coming mainly from geopolitical concerns, in Venezuela, Middle East, including Iran and elsewhere, Trend reports citing Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Fatih Birol.
Downside is mainly because of the slowing down of the global economy and its impact on the demand, especially the Chinese economy, Birol told Bloomberg.
“We expect Chinese economy growth this year will be the slowest in the last three decades. We should remember that China alone was responsible for 50 percent of the global demand growth in the last 10 years. So the downside impact on the price may well come from the slowing down of the global economy, especially China and other emerging economies,” he said.
Birol noted that if the economic slowdown indications coming from China from the car sales, telephone sales, construction industry continue, and if there is a slowdown from China and rest of the world, this may well have impacts on oil demand expectations for this year and may be beyond.
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