Venezuelan oil production fell 4% in July

The sanctions of the United States against the regime of Nicolás Maduro already have economic effects. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) reported Friday that Venezuelan crude oil production registered a 4% drop between June and July, about 32,000 barrels per day.

These data are included in the monthly report disseminated in Vienna by OPEC, and in which "secondary sources" from independent institutes and analysts are cited.

Extractions from Venezuela, one of OPEC's founding partners and until recently one of its largest producers, went from June 774,000 to July 742,000, according to the report.

World oil demand cools

The entire Opep bloc suffered a decline in July to 29.61 mbd, 246,000 bd less than in June and well below the demand estimated by the world requires the group, about 30.7 mbd.

Part of this fall was also due to the fact that Saudi Arabia, which cut its pumping by 131,000 bd, as well as other countries that saw its production drop involuntarily, also has economic blockages by the Donald Trump administration.

A possible "brexit" without agreement and a trade war between the United States and China led Opep to revise its calculation of oil demand until the end of 2020.

In its monthly report, the organization expects global oil consumption to grow by 1.1 million barrels per day, 40,000 barrels per day less than it had estimated a month ago.

With this, the average demand in this year will not exceed 100 mbd, as initially expected, but will be slightly below that barrier (99.92 mbd), which will only exceed 2020, thanks to a annual increase of 1.14 mbd.

The downward correction, the document says, will not be the last if the current course of the global economy is maintained, which points to a slowdown in the main engines of global growth, from China to the United States, through the European Union.

"This forecast is subject to a possible downward revision due to uncertainties related to the direction of the global economy," underlines the Opep report.

The oil group analysts slightly revised downwards their forecast on the growth of the global economy in 2019, at 3.1%, after lowering 0.2% their forecast of the advance of the situation in the United States, up to 2, 4%.

The data on the growth of the Eurozone remain the same, with an advance of 1.2%, while China remains at 6.2%, far from its best figures, and India at 6.8%.

"The outlook on the fundamentals of the market seems somewhat pessimistic for the rest of the year, given the weakened economic growth, ongoing trade problems and the slowdown in the increase in demand," the report provides.

Economic uncertainty

OPEC said that "great uncertainties" loom over the planet's juncture, where "the downward risk to global economic growth is predominant."

Although the world oil market is currently more balanced, analysts focus on the growing risk of a global slowdown and the negative effects of the US-China trade dispute.

The outlook described is similar to that proposed by the International Energy Agency, which lowered its estimates of world oil demand for this year and next year.

This, based on the diminished world GDP outlook published by the International Monetary Fund.