Shell sees oil demand around 'normal' levels in 2022

Oil demand is likely to recover strongly in the second half of the year, going "sort of back to normal" in 2022, Shell's chief executive Ben van Beurden said today.

Global oil consumption is now around 5-7pc lower than it was in 2019, he said.

"The recovery will probably have to wait until we also see a recovery in the aviation sector, which is a significant driver of demand growth," he said. "Aviation will be a very significant contributor to that remaining recovery that we need to see."

Van Beurden expects "a strong recovery" in oil demand in the second half of this year, "and I believe 2022 is going to be sort of back to normal" in terms of consumption reaching pre-pandemic levels, he said.

But for now there is a mixed demand-recovery picture in different parts of the world, van Beurden said.

"We see a recovery in China, for instance. If you look at January versus January [2020], we actually not only see a recovery, we see 15pc growth in our retail business," he said.

By Konstantin Rozhnov