Apr 15, 2024 - Energy & Climate
The IEA is sticking to its guns on peak oil demand
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The International Energy Agency is offering fresh evidence for its estimate that global demand will peak this decade.
Why it matters: The future of oil carries huge stakes for producing economic growth, powering clean tech firms, and protecting the planet.
- And the agency's latest commentary comes as some Republicans and analysts say IEA underestimates the persistence of demand growth.
The big picture: Steep demand growth as nations emerged from COVID has run its course, IEA's Toril Bosoni and Ciarán Healy write.
- They also see China's outsized role in boosting petro-thirst over the last decade easing.
- IEA projects slower economic growth there in 2024 and 2025, and fast Chinese uptake of electric vehicles and other tech that displaces demand.
- And IEA sees other "structural" reasons for slowing demand growth post-2025, such as Middle East countries using less oil for electricity.
Reality check: Absent stronger climate policies and investment, the post-peak decline will be very gradual, they write.
- And views about crude's trajectory are hardly uniform.
- For instance, a new report from analytics firm Enverus sees no peak or even plateau this decade but does project slowing growth after 2030.
