RIYADH: The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries stuck on Tuesday to its forecast for relatively strong growth in global oil demand in 2024 and said there was a chance the world economy could do better than expected this year. In its monthly report, OPEC said world oil demand will rise by 2.25 million barrels per day in 2024 and by 1.85 million bpd in 2025. Both forecasts were unchanged from last month. Demand for members of the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development is projected to expand by nearly 0.3 million bpd, while the non-OECD is forecast to grow by about 2 million bpd. This is the last report before OPEC and its allies, known as OPEC+, meet on June 1 to finalize output policy. The oil alliance, in its report, sounded an upbeat tone on the economic outlook. “Despite certain downside risks, the continued momentum observed since the start of the year could create additional upside potential for global economic growth in 2024 and beyond,” OPEC said. The world economic growth forecasts for 2024 and 2025 remain unchanged at 2.8 percent and 2.9 percent, respectively. The report slightly revised up the US growth forecast for 2024 and 2025 to 2.2 percent and 1.9 percent respectively. “The economic growth forecast for the eurozone remains at 0.5 percent for 2024 and 1.2 percent for 2025,” it added. It kept China’s economic growth forecast at 4.8 percent in 2024 and 4.6 percent in 2025. Russia’s economic growth for 2024 is revised up slightly to 2.3 percent, while the forecast for 2025 remains at 1.4 percent. According to the report, refinery margins in April continued to trend downward as the recovery in refinery processing rates and stronger product output weighed on product markets.