Oil demand recovery threatened by new Covid wave: Total

Global oil demand could take longer to recover because of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, Total's chief executive Patrick Pouyanne said today.

"[This] period is characterised by a lot of uncertainty. People are all expecting to see the recovery," he told the virtual India Energy Forum by CERAWeek.

"We have seen it, by the way, in Europe in our retail business. We had good volumes during the last quarter, almost like before the pandemic," Pouyanne said. "But globally speaking, the demand is still weak. I am afraid that with the second wave we are experiencing in many continents today again, it could be longer [for demand] to recover like everybody hoped."

Leading European oil and gas companies will report their third-quarter results this week, including BP tomorrow and Total on 30 October.

The IEA said earlier this month it sees oil demand at 91.7mn b/d this year, down by 8.4mn b/d from 2019. It expects oil consumption to rise by 1.7mn b/d by December from September, helped by gains in refined product markets.

Total's European refining margin slipped into negative territory in the July-September quarter. BP's global refining marker margin (RMM) picked up in the period, but remained substantially below levels from a year earlier, and its margins were worst in Europe.

By Konstantin Rozhnov