LONDON (Reuters) – The International Energy Agency (IEA) cut its forecast for oil demand growth this year by 70,000 barrels per day (bpd), or about 7.2 percent, to 900,000 bpd, its monthly report showed on Thursday.

The Paris-based international organization cites slowing Chinese demand as the main factor in the slowdown in global demand growth.

The IEA now expects Chinese demand to grow by only 180,000 bpd in 2024 as the macroeconomic slowdown coincides with increased adoption of electric vehicles.

“With oil demand growth in China appearing to be slowing, and most other countries experiencing only modest increases or declines, current trends reinforce our view that global demand will plateau by the end of the decade,” the IEA wrote.

According to the Paris-based international organization, gasoline consumption in the United States, the world’s largest customer, fell year-on-year in five of the first six months of the year, the IEA said.

“Outside China, oil demand growth is tepid at best,” the IEA notes.

The agency left its forecast for demand growth in 2025 unchanged at around 950,000 bpd, but suggested the global oil market could suffer a glut next year if the OPEC+ group of producers goes ahead with its plan to reverse voluntary output cuts.

On the oil market, at around 12:05 GMT, Brent rose by 1.37% to $71.58 per barrel and American light crude (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) by 1.53% to $68.34, but prices reduced their gains slightly after the new IEA forecasts.

In contrast to the IEA report, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said in its report on Tuesday that global oil demand would rise by 2.03 million bpd this year, driven in part by higher growth in China. The gap between OPEC’s and the IEA’s growth forecasts for this year is equivalent to more than 1% of global demand.

(Reporting by Robert Harvey and Alex Lawler in London; Editing by Kate Entringer; Editing by Diana Mandiá and Claude Chendjou)

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