Affected by the trade tensions under the recent "reciprocal tariffs" and their impact on the economic outlook, the market is re-evaluating its expectations of the fundamental supply and demand situation in the global oil market. Major institutions such as the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have recently successively released their monthly reports on the oil market, lowering the growth expectations of the oil market demand.

The IEA significantly lowered the oil demand growth expectations for this year and next year in its monthly report. It revised the GDP forecasts that support oil demand for this year and next year from the previous 3.1% to 2.4% and 2.5% respectively. It is expected that the growth rate of global oil demand this year will drop sharply from the previous 1.03 million barrels per day to 726,000 barrels per day, and the growth next year will further slow down to 692,000 barrels per day. At the same time, on the supply side, Saudi Arabia has pushed OPEC+ to increase the production increase in May to three times the original plan. Although the annual growth expectations of non-OPEC countries have slowed down, the United States, Canada, Brazil, Guyana, etc. will achieve record production this year, which will exacerbate the global oversupply situation. It is expected that the oversupply in the oil market will reach 1.7 million barrels per day by 2026.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) also significantly lowered its expectations for the growth of oil market demand in its latest released report. It is expected that the global oil demand will increase by 900,000 barrels per day this year, which is about 400,000 barrels per day lower than its forecast in March. It believes that Trump's tariff policy has cast a shadow over the global economic outlook, and oil prices may face downward pressure in the coming months. It also lowered the average price expectations of U.S. crude oil for this year and next year.

OPEC also recently lowered its oil demand expectations for this year, which is the first such reduction by the organization since December 2024. OPEC lowered the expected increase in global average daily oil demand in 2025 compared to 2024 from 1.45 million barrels to 1.3 million barrels, and lowered the expected increase in global average daily oil demand in 2026 compared to 2025 from 1.43 million barrels to 1.28 million barrels. It stated that this adjustment is mainly based on the data of the first quarter of this year and the expected impact of the recent tariff policy announced by the United States on oil demand. However, OPEC's expected growth values of oil demand for this year and next year are almost twice those predicted by the IEA. It believes that major factors such as the strong demand for air travel and road transportation in non-OECD countries will support the growth of oil demand.

Affected by the Trump administration's "reciprocal tariffs" policy, international crude oil prices have dropped significantly since the beginning of this month. On April 9, the futures prices of U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and UK Brent crude oil both dropped to their lowest levels in nearly four years during intraday trading. However, the recent capricious statements of Trump on "reciprocal tariffs" and the uncertain prospects of the negotiations between the United States and multiple parties have led to market wait-and-see attitudes, and international oil prices have rebounded somewhat. Nevertheless, industry insiders believe that the impact of "reciprocal tariffs" has not ended, the outlook for oversupply is pessimistic, the upside space for international oil prices is limited, and they may return to a downward trend.