The U.S. Energy Information Administration has lowered its Brent spot price forecast for 2019.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has lowered its Brent spot price forecast for 2019 in its latest short-term energy outlook.

The EIA now sees Brent spot prices averaging $67 per barrel this year, which marks a $3 drop compared to the forecast in the organization’s previous short-term energy outlook. This decrease reflects rising uncertainty about global oil demand growth, the EIA highlighted.

Last month, the International Energy Agency (IEA) cut its oil demand growth forecast for 2019 to 1.3 million barrels per day (MMbpd). The alteration was the first change to the IEA’s 2019 demand outlook for several months. Prior to the cut, the IEA’s oil demand growth forecast for 2019 stood at 1.4 MMbpd.

Earlier this year, Rystad Energy’s long-term outlook forecasted that oil demand would grow steadily in the 2020s and peak in the late 2030s.

“In our long-term outlook we currently see oil demand growing steadily in the 2020s and peaking in the late-2030s, as we incorporate moderate technological shifts and accelerated efficiency gains that will flatten on-road transportation demand and petrochemical feedstock demand growth towards 2040,” Rystad Energy Chief Oil Analyst Bjornar Tonhaugen said in a statement sent to Rigzone back in January.

Oil consumption in 2018 grew by an above average 1.4 MMbpd, or 1.5 percent, according to BP’s latest statistical review of world energy. This growth in demand was dominated by the developing world, according to the review.