OPEC lowers global oil demand forecast

VIENNA - OPEC on Thursday cut its medium-term global oil demand forecast due to the impact of euro zone debt crisis and the economic weakness.

The OPEC annual World Oil Outlook report, officially released Thursday, lowered its forecast for global oil demand in 2016 to 92.9 million barrels per day, a cut of over 1 million barrels per day from last year's report.

OPEC also issued its long-term oil demand forecast in the report, which predicted the global oil demand would hit 107.3 million barrels per day by 2035, 2.4 million barrels per day lower than previous forecast.

In the report, OPEC for the first time acknowledged that technology for extracting oil and gas from shale might significantly change the global oil supply geographically.

However, the report stressed that the fossil energy, in the future, would remain the most important energy source in the world energy supply, noting that demand for crude would rise more slowly than it had previously expected.