OPEC Chief Accuses Media of “Misrepresenting” 2026 Oil Outlook

OPEC does not project an oil supply surplus for 2026, the secretary-general of OPEC, Haitham al Ghais, told CNBC today, slamming the media for covering its Monthly Oil Market Report inaccurately.

“There was a misrepresentation by some media about our monthly market report,” al Ghais said, “specifically regarding the messages and a narrative that was being created out of reading some of our numbers. For example, things related to the market being in a surplus next year.”

Indeed, as Oilprice reported last week, OPEC said in its report that it expected the oil market to be in balance next year. The forecast was a revision of an earlier projection about a deficit, however, which prompted a selloff on oil markets and pushed international benchmarks lower.

The group said that oil production from non-OPEC countries would grow faster than expected, adding 1.3 million barrels daily to supply in 2026. Demand, OPEC said, would meanwhile grow at a rate of 1.6 million barrels daily, reaching a total of 106.2 million barrels daily.

In his talk with CNBC, Haitham al Ghais remarked that the Monthly Oil Market Report that OPEC produces is “very basic” and that there was “nothing complex about it”, possibly implying it was difficult to find the information contained in the report hard to understand or interpret, leading to inaccurate reporting.

Meanwhile, despite OPEC’s expectation of a balanced global crude oil market in 2026, analysts expect the group to keep adding production after a short pause at the start of the year, agreed at its latest meeting.

A survey that Bloomberg conducted among 25 traders and analysts earlier this month showed most of them expected more monthly additions to OPEC’s total, with only a handful anticipating a longer pause or even a reversal of the production policy.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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