OREANDA-NEWS.   In the Middle East, oil demand is anticipated to continue growing in 2014 at a stable rate, increasing by 0.31 mb/d above the 2013 total consumption levels. Similar to 2013, most of this growth is expected to come from Saudi Arabia, with expected growth of 0.15 mb/d.

In Saudi Arabia, oil consumption in 2014 began with oil growth of around 0.1 mb/d or around 5% y-o-y. Most of this growth is directed towards other products, direct crude burning and jet/kerosene, indicating improvements in the industrial and aviation sectors.

Similarly, oil demand figures for January 2014 in Iraq were encouraging with growth of approximately 80 tb/d, an increase of around 12% y-o-y. The bulk of this growth originated from crude oil burning for power generation with moderate growth also in transportation fuels, namely jet/kerosene and diesel oil.

In 2013, Middle East oil demand grew by 0.28 mb/d, while in 2014, it is projected to increase by 0.31 mb/d.