The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) announced Wednesday a cut in its estimate for growth in daily global oil demand in 2005 from 2.0 percent to 1.9 percent.

OPEC said in a monthly report that the daily global oil demand in 2005 would be 83.6 million barrels, an increase of 1.58 million barrels from 2004.

In July, the organization forecast that the daily demand increase in 2005 would be 1.62 million barrels.

The report attributed the reduced forecast to a lower-than-expected consumption in the countries like the United States.

As to economic growth estimates, the report said that the United States and China would continue the pace of strong development.

Due to a positive forecast of the world economy, the report forecasts the daily oil demand worldwide in 2006 will be 85.2 million barrels, 1.6 million barrels more than that of this year.

Meanwhile, the daily global oil demand from OPEC members for 2006 will rise to 29.2 million barrels, 300,000 barrels more than that for 2005.

In addition, OPEC forecasts that the non-OPEC oil producers' daily output in 2006 would be 51.5 million barrels, up by at least 1 million barrels from that of this year.

The 11 OPEC members, which produce more than a third of the oil consumed worldwide, supplied 30.2 million barrels per day in July, an increase of 210,000 barrels per day compared with June.

Source: Xinhua