Reuters reports that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) trimmed its world oil demand forecast for the last quarter of 2021 due to the Delta coronavirus variant.

OPEC said it expects oil demand to average 99.70 million barrels per day (bpd) in the fourth quarter of 2021, down 110,000 bpd from last month's forecast.

Despite the downward revision to the fourth-quarter, OPEC said world oil demand in the whole of 2021 would rise by 5.96 million bpd, virtually unchanged from last month.

The growth forecast for 2022 was adjusted to 4.15 million bpd, compared to 3.28 million bpd in last month's report and an estimate of 4.2 million bpd given by OPEC sources during the group's last meeting on Sept. 1.