The price of crude oil is expected to average $64 per barrel in 2025, the World Bank has revealed in its April 2025 Commodity Markets Outlook.

This is compared with $80.7 per barrel in 2024.

The Bretton Woods institution is forecasting a further drop in the price of crude oil to an average of $60 in 2025.

All things be equal coupled with a stable foreign exchange, the price of petroleum products will be flat at the pumps.

The report stated that escalating concerns about global economic growth saw oil prices fall sharply in early April 2025 to below $63 per barrel, the lowest level since April 2021.

The price slump started with the announcement of large trade tariffs on April 2, 2025, by the United States. This was associated with a $12 per barrel decrease in the course of four trading days, the 11th-worst four-trading-day price performance since 1990.

Although the Brent crude price had declined to $70/bbl by early March 2025, the net impact of these different factors resulted in a small increase of $1/bbl in quarter one 2025, partially reversing a $5/bbl quarter-on-quarter decrease in the final quarter of 2024.

Global Oil Demand

Meanwhile, global oil demand increased by 1.2 m/d (1.2%) in the first quarter of 2025 compared with 1.1% in quarter 4 2024.

Oil demand in China edged up by 0.2 mb/d (1.4%) in first quarter 2025 from 1.0% in 4^th quarter of 2024, with demand in advanced economies also picking up by 0.4 mb/d (0.9%), from 0.3%.

Over the course of 2024, oil consumption growth slowed in China, Europe and Central Asia (ECA), and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), but accelerated in East Asia and the Pacific (EAP) excluding China, the Middle East and North Africa (MNA), and South Asia (SAR).

Consumption fell in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), while it was flat in advanced economies.

The deceleration of China’s oil demand in 2024 was due in part to increasing penetration of electric vehicles (EVs). More than 40% of new cars purchased in China in 2024 are estimated to be EVs, with a resulting oil demand reduction of about 0.45 mb/d.