The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) is doubling down on dubious oil and gas demand forecasts, boldly predicting no new long-lead oil and gas — or even coal — projects will be needed after this year..Anywhere..That’s because it’s expecting fossil fuel demand to peak this decade, it said in its updated Net Zero Roadmap on Tuesday. It’s an update of a publication that was first released in 2021..In the updated net zero scenario, a huge “policy-driven” ramping up of renewable energy capacity drives fossil fuel demand 25% lower by 2030 and 80% by 2050, it insists. Meanwhile, global renewable power capacity triples by 2030 driven by sales of electric vehicles and heat pumps and energy sector methane emissions fall by 75%..“As a result, no new long-lead-time upstream oil and gas projects are needed. Neither are new coal mines, mine extensions or new unabated (those without carbon capture) coal plants,” IEA said in a release..Nonetheless, continued investment is required in some existing oil and gas assets and already approved projects. .“Sequencing the increase in clean energy investment and the decline of fossil fuel supply investment is vital if damaging price spikes or supply gluts are to be avoided,” it added..The report reinforces numbers released earlier this year that suggest global oil demand will fall below 25 million barrels per day — more than 75% — by 2050..At the World Petroleum Congress in Calgary last week, Premier Danielle Smith called those numbers “a fantasy” and bemoaned the fact the IEA has become a politically driven organization..Even Saudi Aramco chief executive Amin Nasser said in a keynote address the IEA numbers were “unrealistic” and even “dangerous.” .With oil demand set to hit a record 104 million bpd in the second half of this year, Nasser said the concept of “peak demand is seriously flawed.”.“And this is in the middle of an economic downturn. I fail to understand how this is going to happen.”.Prior to the congress, OPEC — of which Aramco is a leading member — took the unusual step of issuing a statement debunking the IEA’s forecasts.."Such narratives only set the global energy system up to fail spectacularly," OPEC Secretary General Haitham al-Ghais said in a September 14 statement. "It would lead to energy chaos on a potentially unprecedented scale, with dire consequences for economies and billions of people across the world."
