Global oil demand likely to grow in 2019: BP CEO

Global oil demand is expected to grow by another 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd) this year despite growing concerns about a global economic slowdown, Bob Dudley, Chief Executive Officer of BP, told CNBC on Tuesday.

BP’s forecast comes in line with the latest estimate at 1.3 million bpd last year from the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), but ahead of OPEC, which sees demand growing at a more tepid 1.29 million bpd.

“We’re not actually seeing this worrying thought that it’s all going to start falling,” Dudley said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Oil prices are “heading back into a reasonable balance” following two “big” overcorrections, one that saw oil prices spike to nearly four-year highs in October and another that dragged prices to roughly 18-month lows in December.

The British energy giant expects the global economy to grow by 3 percent or more and the United States’ gross domestic product to expand a little bit under 3 percent, Dudley added.