Recently, oil and natural gas prices have increased significantly, leading to high power prices due to energy shortages in Asia and Europe. The International Energy Agency (IEA) stated that record coal and gas prices, along with power outages, are causing the power sector and energy-intensive industries to rely on oil to maintain operations. This rise in energy costs is contributing to inflation and could potentially slow down the economic recovery. Consequently, the IEA has revised its global oil demand projections for next year, expecting demand to return to pre-pandemic levels. Additionally, the agency has increased its demand forecasts for this year and 2022 by 170,000 bpd and 210,000 bpd, respectively. An increase in demand in the previous quarter resulted in the largest depletion of oil product stocks in eight years, with storage levels in OECD countries reaching their lowest point since early 2015. The IEA projected that the producer group OPEC+ would produce 700,000 bpd less than the estimated demand for its crude in the fourth quarter of this year, indicating that demand will exceed supply until the end of 2021. The report cautioned that spare production capacity from the group is expected to decrease rapidly, dropping from 9 million bpd in the first quarter of this year to just 4 million bpd in the second quarter of 2022, primarily in a small number of Middle Eastern countries. This decline emphasizes the necessity of increasing investment to meet future demand. The report highlighted the importance of accelerating investment in clean energy transitions to avoid potential challenges in global energy markets. The IEA released its flagship annual energy outlook in advance of an upcoming climate conference in Britain, indicating that the current economic recovery heavily relies on unsustainable fossil fuels. It was stated on Wednesday that investment in renewable energy must increase threefold by the end of the decade in order to effectively combat climate change.