LONDON, Feb 1 (Reuters) – OPEC+ will likely stick to existing policies of moderate output increases on Wednesday, five sources from the producer group said even as it expects demand to rise new highs this year and oil prices are trading near their highest since 2014.

The group, which includes the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its Russian-led allies and produces more than 40% of the world’s supply, has faced pressure from major consumers such as the United States and the India to pump more to help with the economic recovery from the pandemic.

But OPEC+ has refused to sign on to faster increases, arguing that the world is facing an energy shortage due to miscalculated energy transitions to greener fuels by consuming nations.

Several OPEC members have struggled to pump even within their quotas due to underinvestment in recent years.

Five OPEC+ sources told Reuters on Tuesday they expected ministers to agree to go ahead with a planned increase of 400,000 barrels a day in March, despite high oil prices.

“The question (of faster increases) has not arisen and I doubt it has,” said an OPEC+ source, who asked if an OPEC+ expert committee meeting had discussed an increase of more than 400,000 bpd during its virtual meeting on Tuesday.

A report prepared by the committee, known as the Joint Technical Committee (JTC), and seen by Reuters on Tuesday kept the forecast for global oil demand growth unchanged for 2022 at 4.2 million bpd.

He said he expected demand to reach pre-pandemic levels in the second half of the year. Oil demand peaked at just over 100 million bpd in 2019.

The report still indicates that the world would face a crude surplus in 2022 reaching 1.3 million bpd, slightly less than its previous forecast of 1.4 million bpd.

The report, however, notes that a number of risks continue to loom in the oil market, including “significant uncertainties” associated with the potential impact of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, persistent supply chain bottlenecks and central bank policy to counter inflation.

The JTC also flagged other risks to the oil market recovery, citing volatility in commodity markets, constraints on oil production capacity due to underinvestment, the challenge of high levels of sovereign debt in many many regions and geopolitical risks.

Brent prices were around $89 a barrel on Tuesday, not too far off the seven-year high of $91.70 hit last week, mostly on geopolitical tensions.

Goldman Sachs said in a note that there was a chance for a faster OPEC+ ramp-up given the pace of the recent market rally.

(This story edits to correct typos in paragraphs 2 and 3.)

Reporting by Ahmad Ghaddar and Olesya Astakhova, additional reporting by Alex Lawler and Maha El Dahan; written by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by David Goodman and Marguerita Choy

Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.