Global crude demand to grow into 2030s: Vitol

Global demand for crude will continue to grow into next decade, according to trading firm Vitol.

The company's head of business in Asia, Mike Muller, today told a panel discussion at Platts APPEC 2021 that "the consensus is we are heading towards something like 110mn b/d by the early to mid 2030s".

"Peak oil demand remains ahead of us", he said.

Muller's sentiment was echoed by other panellists, including Colombian state-owned Ecopetrol. Its commercial and marketing vice president Pedro Manrique said it will be very difficult to replace oil and gas demand by 2050, and that most forecasts project crude demand will peak between 2027 and 2035.

"The demand for diesel and gasoline in the transportation sector in Latin America is expected to grow and will reach a peak around 2032 for diesel," said Manrique. "For gasoline it will be even further, 2040 to 2045."

Indian state-controlled refiner Bharat Petroleum's (BPCL) executive director of international trade D V Mamadapur said "oil is going to stay with us unless and until another economical renewable energy comes in a faster way across the world."

Norwegian state-controlled Equinor's senior vice-president of crude, products and liquids Molly Morris concurred, saying "we see energy demand in general is also growing and we do not have enough forms of new energy. With that we still expect that there is growth here to come and we have not seen the peak yet."

Beyond that point, Vitol's Muller said demand is more likely to level off than to fall back.

"If you look at today's capacity to refine and to bring to market the petroleum products, the infrastructure has yet to be built that is going to have the capacity to supply 105mn, 108mn, 110mn b/d.

"And you can understand the reluctance in the business community, and you can see it by the actions of the large oil company participants already, to build that last refinery that the world might need to cater for that peak barrel of demand, so we need to see the market incentivise people to do so. The same goes for upstream production," Muller said.

By Fabian Ng