OPEC is optimistic. How much can the world’s oil traders be, at a time when US Finance Minister Scott Besant warns that China is taking “provocative (customs) steps”, but that for Washington the long-announced, but uninitiated in Beijing, meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping (at the end of the month at the ASEAN summit), is “still in play”?.
In other words, how much is “geopolitics” an influencing factor on the price of a barrel at the moment?
On the one hand, OPEC in its (monthly) report today expects that “world oil supply next year will be close to demand as the wider OPEC+ group increases production”, which is marking a change from last month’s forecasts, which projected a supply shortfall in 2026,” Reuters reported. (https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/opec-holds-oil-demand-outlook-points-smaller-2026-supply-deficit-2025-10-13/)
At the same time, OPEC also sounds encouraging when it assesses that “The world economy continues to show solid growth,” maintaining its forecast that global oil demand will grow by 1.3 million barrels per day this year, and at a slightly faster pace in 2026. “Robust global economic dynamics seen in the third quarter of 2025, along with upward revisions to growth in the second in the quarter of 2025 in the US and Japan, as well as strong data from India and China, reinforce the stable outlook for global growth,” OPEC said
In the meantime, the ongoing slight increase in the price of a barrel (WTI reached today 59.35 US dollars per barrel, i.e. plus 2.5 percent on the day), is related to two, seemingly unrelated developments.
First of all, in today’s speech in the Israeli Knesset, US President Donald Trump announced that the “war is over” between Israel and Hamas, which should indicate future peaceful times, at least in the Near and Middle East. At the same time, Trump announced that the US is ready for a “deal” with Iran, when Tehran is ready for it.
On the other side of the world, speaking at the opening of the annual meeting of the Brazil-China Business Council, Ambassador Zhu Qingqiao told business leaders, senior Brazilian officials and diplomats that Beijing is committed to sustainable development and building a “world-class” business environment while jointly addressing the challenges posed by an increasingly volatile global trade landscape. On that occasion, Ambassador Zhu condemned the American “law of the jungle” in the tariffs showdown. At the same time, the ambassador criticized “some great powers, obsessed with the supremacy of power”.
So now, the two hopes of the petro exchange: long live peace in Gaza, and more widely in the Near and Middle East; and for the readiness of both Washington and Beijing to at least avoid an imminent open customs war—if not harmonize the relations between the two leading economies of the world, still remain as two “geopolitical unknowns”.
The unpredictable development of circumstances in the Near and Middle East (in the arena of the announcement of the start of the implementation of the second phase of Trump’s peace plan for Gaza as of this week), and the uncertain profile of the announced next round of tariff negotiations between the US and China (the current “ceasefire” expires on November 9), call for the continued geopolitical caution on the part of global oil market players.
