by johnmarkos » Thu 12 May 2005, 17:21:37
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('johnmarkos', 'T')hat quote is misleading, I agree. I believe they still project demand increases for all of these places. When they say, "revised downwards its estimate of demand in Europe," what they're saying is that they're revising downward their projection for demand increase in Europe (2005 over 2004). This month, they think demand will grow less than they thought it would last month.
Also, "demand pressures in China and the United States had continued to ease," means that they're seeing less demand there now than they expected before. That does not equate to an absence of growth, only slower growth than expected.
Actually, they may be talking about the seasonal (Q2) decrease in demand in northern hemisphere countries that use a lot of heating oil. To know for sure what they mean, it would be necessary to look at raw numbers. I'm pretty sure they're not actually talking about a year over year decrease in demand for any of those places.