OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais said on Thursday that the peak of oil demand has not yet appeared, and he fiercely criticized the International Energy Agency's (IEA) prediction that global oil demand will peak before 2030.

Al Ghais wrote in his column in the EA Forum that some net zero emission scenarios suggest that oil should not be part of the future for sustainable energy (i.e., oil should be phased out). "This view was reiterated yesterday when the IEA released its 2024 Oil Report, which again indicated that oil demand will peak before 2030.

Al Ghais warned, "This is a dangerous comment, especially for consumers, and will only lead to unprecedented energy market volatility."

In a report released on Wednesday, the IEA said that future growth in oil demand will slow down in the coming years, with global demand peaking in 2029, and rising production will result in significant oversupply in the oil supply market for the next decade.

The IEA said that global oil demand is being curtailed by the transition to clean energy and has been actively advocating for accelerating the energy transformation in recent years.

Al Ghais pointed out in his column that all previous peak oil demand predictions have been proven wrong. "The IEA once predicted that gasoline demand would peak in 2019, but gasoline consumption reached a record high in 2023 and continues to rise this year."

Al Ghais added, "Of course, we all want to reduce emissions, but at the same time, we all need adequate, reliable, and affordable energy supplies. These two cannot be decoupled."

Al Ghais said that billions of people still do not have access to energy, while oil demand continues to grow.

The OPEC secretary general criticized the International Energy Agency's idea that oil demand will peak before 2030 and called it an "unrealistic idea" and "a continuation of IEA's anti-oil rhetoric. Given the actual trends we see today, we will not see peak oil demand by the end of this decade."

Hugh Daigle, a professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, said, "Historically, predictions of peak oil demand have been proven wrong." Daigle said, "Because you have to make so many assumptions, every assumption you make will change the model's results."

Morgan Bazilian, a professor of public policy at the Colorado School of Mines, said, "It is important to remember that peak does not necessarily mean a steep decline. It (oil demand) looks more like a slow descent."