WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump linked American support for Middle Eastern countries to oil prices on Thursday as he again urged OPEC to lower prices.

"We protect the countries of the Middle East, they would not be safe for very long without us, and yet they continue to push for higher and higher oil prices! We will remember. The OPEC monopoly must get prices down now!" Trump wrote on Twitter.

NOW NEAR 100 MILLION BPD, WHEN WILL OIL DEMAND PEAK?

Sometime in the next few weeks, global oil consumption will reach 100 million barrels per day (bpd) - more than twice what it was 50 years ago - and it shows no immediate sign of falling.

Despite overwhelming evidence of carbon-fuelled climate change and billions in subsidies for alternative technologies such as wind and solar power, oil is so entrenched in the modern world that demand is still rising by up to 1.5 percent a year.

There is no consensus on when world oil demand will peak but it is clear much depends on how governments respond to global warming.

That's the view of the International Energy Agency (IEA), which advises Western economies on energy policy.

As Bassam Fattouh and Anupama Sen of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies said in a presentation last month, the debate over peak demand "signifies a shift in perception from scarcity to abundance", which is already changing the behaviour of all players in the world oil market, including exporters.

"Taking the 'peak demand' argument forward, it is generally thought that the world is on the brink of another energy transition, in which conventional sources such as oil will eventually be substituted away in favour of low-carbon sources."

OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo told a conference in South Africa on Sept. 5 that global consumption would hit 100 million bpd this year, sooner than anyone had projected.

With a sophisticated global infrastructure for extraction, refining and distribution, oil produces such a powerful burst of energy that it is invaluable for some forms of transport such as aircraft.

Of the almost 100 million barrels of oil consumed daily, more than 60 million bpd goes for transport, and alternative fuel systems such as battery-powered electric cars still have little market share.