It is fairly common nowadays to see relatively near-term estimates for a point at which demand for petroleum-based fuels begins to decline. The term often used to describe this “tipping point” is Peak Oil Demand. When I say “near term,” I mean right around the corner if you look at an estimate published last year by the International Energy Agency-IEA, an intergovernmental agency headquartered in Paris, France, and originally established after the Oil Embargo of 1973 to help cushion against future oil shocks. This agency has expanded its mission to a fairly broad remit over the years since, and it is not the purpose of this article to detail all its endeavors. One role we will highlight is that of the one it plays in gauging and advising member governments on energy security and energy sources for the coming years.
In that capacity, the IEA in a report entitled, Oil 2023, and published last year settled on 2028 as the year past which the use of petroleum fuels will begin to decline.
“Growth in the world’s demand for oil is set to slow almost to a halt in the coming years, with the high prices and security of supply concerns highlighted by the global energy crisis hastening the shift towards cleaner energy technologies, according to a new IEA report released today.”
This view is largely shared, particularly with respect to liquid motor fuels, by other agencies and organizations that produce long range estimates. The U.S. Energy Information Agency-EIA, Rystad, and Det Norske Veritas- DNV, all show this category tailing off rapidly in the 2030s as electric vehicles assume larger shares of passenger vehicles. We will call this the “Bear Case” for liquid fuels.
As you might expect the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries-OPEC, disagrees with this view. In fact in their recent report on oil demand outlook, published in Nov 2023, they see oil demand of all kinds, except for electricity generation, rising from ~105 mm BOPD in 2025, to 116 mm BOPD in 2045. This forecast show use of oil as a road fuel continuing to be the largest source of demand increase for this period.
The report notes that “the divergence between the IEA and OPEC outlooks is largely due to assumptions regarding the speed at which internal combustion engine vehicles will be replaced by electric vehicles.”
What is interesting is that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to see a production trend being established that would support the bear case. In the U.S., we are pumping at a rate of over 13.2 mm BOPD and still importing ~6.7 mm BOPD to feed our nearly 22 mm BOPD daily habit. The U.S. Energy Information Agency-EIA forecasts in their monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook-STEO that by the end of 2025, global production and demand fall into a fairly tight balance at 105 mm BOPD. That certainly isn’t a long-term trend, but as is often said, the long-term trend is made up of a bunch of short-term ones. For my part, I would say that the trend line in the STEO graph below matches the OPEC estimate more closely than the other three.
Both of these notions cannot be true. Which is the correct assumption about future oil demand? Or are they both wrong? What are two factors these two disparate views of oil demand are not taking into account?
The first answer lies in how you interpret the growth of the middle class in China, India, and Africa in terms of energy demand and the final form it will take. The second is the advent of energy demand for Artificial Intelligence (AI), an entirely new source of demand that is just now starting to appear in energy demand forecasts. I discussed one possible outcome of this demand for U.S. natural gas in an article in March 2024.
To be clear, I am not arguing that AI demand will directly impact crude oil demand as a primary source. Most analysts are factoring renewables and natural gas to meet AI demand. What will impact demand for WTI and other baskets of crude is the relationship to light oil production in the U.S. and the associated gas that’s produced along with it. We will leave that discussion for a future article and refocus on our basic topic. What could oil demand actually be when accounting for growth in currently underserved but upwardly aspiring lower classes?
Then there is the Bull Case for oil. Arjun Murti, a well-known energy commentator and partner at energy analyst firm Veriten, as well as a former Goldman Sachs energy analyst, discussed future energy demand in a recent podcast on his Super-Spiked blog. In the episode titled, “Everyone is Rich,” Arjun posits what the impact on world energy demand would be if everyone was as energy-rich as the “Lucky,” 1.2 billion people that live in the Western World. More specifically, Arjun asks what it would mean for the other 7 billion people in China, India, Asia, and Africa to have the lifestyle that Americans, Canadians, Europeans, and a few other countries enjoy. The answer he comes up with on an absolute basis, 250 mm BOPD, using a reference point of 10 bbls a year!
Where are we now? The U.S consumes ~22 bbls of oil annually per capita while China consumes 3.7 bbls per capita. Indians use just 1.3 bbls per annum. That’s a pretty wide gap, and as Arjun notes, “economic growth and energy growth are one and the same. You do not get economic growth without adequate energy.”
One of the arguments put forward by the Peak Oil crowd is that efficiency growth Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and energy substitution will bend the curve on oil demand, as noted in the 2030’s, and spell the twilight of fossil fuels. Arjun points out that there is simply no evidence this is happening using data compiled by Goldman Sachs through 2019. Efficiency gains never lower the amount of energy needed to produce an additional dollar of GDP, above 2.7% GDP growth. A point rarely hit in modern times. To close that gap and attain growth you need more energy inputs. Oil.
Looking at Arjun’s graph below, which uses China as an example, we can see with their present demand of 3.7 bbls per capita which equates to about 15 mm BOPD. With 10 bbl per annum added on for growth in the middle class, you get to 35 mm BOPD to meet Chinese energy demand. Even if China attains 100% Electric Vehicle-EV penetration, not something Arjun (or I) believe is possible, you still have 27 mm BOPD of oil demand. According to SP Global China produces about 4.1 mm BOPD, leaving a gap of about 11 mm BOPD they must import to meet present-day demand.
A point that leads me to what Arjun noted as the ultimate demand limiter and why, although countries that will surely desire to increase their oil usage may not be able to do so. Geopolitical limits to imports. Quoting Arjun, “There is no precedent for countries importing 20-30 mm BOPD” to meet their energy needs. The U.S., before the advent of shale production was importing over 10 mm BOPD as recently as 2005. That’s what we know is possible.
It should be noted that India is in a similar fix and for it to meet Arjun’s 10 bbl per capita standard for being rich, they must import 35-45 mm BOPD. We just don’t know if this can be done from both a logistical and sheer capacity of supply basis. As the EIA graph above highlights global oil production has increased only about 3 mm BOPD since 2019. In order for the world’s poor to become richer, a great deal more oil will have to come to market.
Your takeaway
The message of the growth of the middle class globally often gets lost in the constant blare of climate change and energy transition noise. The fact remains that the world we live in today and the one likely to exist at mid-century, runs on oil.
The notion that the world can quickly and painlessly transition to other forms of energy has developed some, not holes, but gaping craters in recent times. Offshore wind farms are being canceled as costs mount. Car manufacturers are delaying implementation of EV rollouts due to lack of interest from consumers. Communities impacted by siting of solar farms are pushing back on land use as they propose to gobble up large tracts for this purpose.
Roger Pielke, another well-known energy commentator and author, in a post in his Substack, The Honest Broker, cites a White Paper by Vaclav Smil that discusses our energy transition progress to this point-
“All we have managed to do halfway through the intended grand global energy transition is a small relative decline in the share of fossil fuel in the world’s primary energy consumption—from nearly 86 percent in 1997 to about 82 percent in 2022. But this marginal relative retreat has been accompanied by a massive absolute increase in fossil fuel combustion: in 2022 the world consumed nearly 55 percent more energy locked in fossil carbon than it did in 1997.”
Balanced against this lack of progress in substituting oil for other forms of energy is the fact that the world’s energy supply is in a tight balance with demand at present. If the poor of the world make even modest progress toward Arjun’s 10 bbl per annum prognostication in the coming years, the Bull Case for oil will certainly asset itself.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 9:14 am
Tu vas apprendre a fermer ta bouche ma grosse a Martineau.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 9:17 am
La grosse chienne a Mario Dumont devrait apprendre a fermer sa trap , criss de gros connard. Veux-tu que je vienne te chercher mon gros con.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWhYiKQR7uc
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 9:34 am
You lost the West. All the Whites people are waiting for a savior to come and kill the invaders for them. He is not coming, you are fucked. Plus you have to save copper for more important applications such industrial motors. So you have to ration copper and stop making bullets. You will have to kill the invaders bare hands. I want to see the strong Mario Dumont kill invaders bare hands. Ostie que c’est drôle
eee on Thu, 16th May 2024 9:49 am
Don’t forget, natural resources are too depleted. Don’t collapse the US, you won’t be able to rebuilt it. Osite de christ que c’est drole.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 9:52 am
On va envoyer Martineau, Dumont and Bock-Côté tuer des immigrants avec un bâton. Osite que ca va etre drole de voir les gros chiens sales pleurer comme des enfants.
eed on Thu, 16th May 2024 9:55 am
On va faire une conscription pis on va envoyer Legault, Trudeau, Champagne, Martineau, Dumont, Bock-Côte tuer des immigrants a mains nues.
eed on Thu, 16th May 2024 10:08 am
you will have to ration copper, meaning no bullets, no police force, no army. Do you see the whole picture from here. I do. Go read revelation 19
7 And I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in midair, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, 18 so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and the mighty, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, great and small.”
Now revelatoin 19 making sense
gg on Thu, 16th May 2024 11:20 am
i finally get your cadavers
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 11:41 am
I told you that I would kill the whole population of earth for a question of handguns possession and laws. You cadavers belong to me and I intends to enjoy them.
eee on Thu, 16th May 2024 12:59 pm
Stupid cock sucker. We had to build earth just to execute you. I can wait to walk over your cadavers
ee
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 1:04 pm
Show me one failure of the principale of conservation of mass. Copper and oil depletion will happen as planned long ago.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 2:45 pm
Les haines sont-elles si difficiles à déloger?
https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2024/05/15/les-haines-sont-elles-si-difficiles-a-deloger
This is what I mean by cheap psychological manipulation trick to manipulate you to accept the invaders and they prepare to be compliant because they want to put everyone in C40 cities. C40 cities only work if people worship the authority and are compliant.
It is way for them to stop you from questioning the people in position of authority.
Why do you hate the immigrants I saw something about hate in Journal de Mardrial.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 3:11 pm
C40 cities in a environment of natural resources depletion are extremely fragile and easy to destroy. You have no where to run if you C40 cities failed.
You cannot have freedom in a C40 cities. You cannot have the formation of gang with different goal, you cannot have guns.
C40 cites can only work in a communist governance form. For a C40 city to work, everyone must followed the rules, everyone must not disagree on the main objectives and so on.
You have to remove freedom of speech and liberties and force people to worship authority if you want C40 city to work. From my point of view, it is an impossible task. C40 cities always collapse and self destroy.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 3:23 pm
There will by no bullets in the future because copper will be rationed. You have to force people to worship authority and be compliant because there will be no police force because there will be no bullets. This is why they are trying to control speech, what you can say, and they tell you what to think and how to act. This is probably one of the reasons for these restrictive firearms laws.
C40 type of cities always failed eventually.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 3:29 pm
It is not because I give free information that I am your friend. I still want the whole population of planet earth dead. Everthing will be revealed before you are killed, see it this way.
Show me one failure of the calculator of conservation of mass.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 3:34 pm
Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face, with stars to fill my dream.
I am a traveler of both time and space to be where I have been.
To sit with elders of a gentle race this world has seldom seen.
Who talk of days for which they sit and wait
When all will be revealed.
Oh, all I see turns to brown
As the sun burns the ground.
Oh, when I’m on, when I’m on my way, yeah
When I see, when I see the way you stay, yeah-eah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_6M254L0XU
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 3:40 pm
I dont I know so much because :
I am a traveler of both time and space to be where I have been.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 3:56 pm
I think the reason why C40 cities do not work is because you need to type of personalities to make it work. You need freedom lovers also named the builders and maintainers of infrastructures and need servant for the jobs require no intelligence like cleaning dished, cleaning clothing.
There two group are incompatible and should not be mixed together, freedom lovers want real freedom and communists want enslavement. C40 cities only work if you worship authority and freedom lovers will never do that.
Some people will tell me, it seems to work in china. Just wait. Look how many China had in the past
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 3:58 pm
Some people will tell me, it seems to work in china. Just wait. Look how many revolutions China had in the past. Never put any kinds of laws on firearms possessions.
rr on Thu, 16th May 2024 4:27 pm
China is the perfect example of trying an to build an utopia using communism. It always failed. Communists give away their liberties in exchange for the state to feed them, protect them, house them. It is a slave master relation. The relation stop as soon as the master (the state) cannot fulfil its obligations.
If the state cannot fulfil its obligations (feeding, protection, housing) the population turn against the state and destroy everything and kill everyone in power. Just wait and see what is the futur of China,
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 4:31 pm
I am a traveler of both time and space to be where I have been.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 4:33 pm
Everything has to be revealed before will kill all earth people.
Oh, when I’m on, when I’m on my way, yeah
When I see, when I see the way you stay, yeah-eah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_6M254L0XU
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 4:38 pm
We are dumping the communists trash on earth. We don’t want them. The trash that we hate goes straight to earth.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 4:45 pm
Communist = mental retard
freedom lover = high IQ
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 4:53 pm
women = communist = mentally retarded
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 5:20 pm
Ostie que vous êtes des trous du cul. Vous devez être vraiment dans la merde pour être venu me voir.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 7:12 pm
18:35 they turned it into some kind of military looking truck, They really nail it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wgjl6fdg-w
WHY elite whitey supertard president GRETA leader of extinction movement no CO2 equals extinction has grown two enormous GLOBAL WARMING SPHERES on Thu, 16th May 2024 8:38 pm
we’re lovers of supremacist muzz
WHY elite whitey supertard president GRETA leader of extinction movement no CO2 equals extinction has grown two enormous GLOBAL WARMING SPHERES on Thu, 16th May 2024 8:40 pm
this place was full of elite supertard presidents but the vaxx took them
SAINT PETERS THEY WENT
now we have AI bots in control by elite supertard president sis
one of his AI bots is elite supertard president EEE
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 8:45 pm
I told you that we will kill everyone on planet earth.
https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/million-texans-without-power-storm-topples-transmission-towers
Everything will be revealed and earth population will be killed after that. Sometime I have trouble walking straight in my house and sometime I have to touch the walls around me because I feel like everything will vanish around me. Sometime I walk like a handicap person with one leg lockup where I canot bend my knee. The energy field is being reconfigured almost daily now.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 8:52 pm
The elites of planet earth are not that powerful at all. You are not powerful, but we are.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 9:00 pm
I will give you an advice in case some of you reincarnate into another body here on earth: NEVER TAKE AWAY THE FIREARMS OF A MAN, NEVER PUT ANY KIND OF POSSESSIONS LAWS OF FIREARMS.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 10:09 pm
I stayed in bed the whole day. I am not surprised about Texas. I made all comments today while I was lying in bed. I simply could not get out of bed. I was floating between 2 dimensions. You see the wall in your bedroom or hand, but it feels like it is fake and you are look at it from another dimension through some kind of funnel.
Like I said, everything will be revealed and you will be killed.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 10:11 pm
I don’t there is much left to be revealed.
ffd on Thu, 16th May 2024 10:11 pm
I don’t think there is much left to be revealed.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 10:34 pm
I also entered in collision with a fake energy wall this evening in my kitchen, I could not see the wall with my eyes but I could feel the energy of the wall. I could not move forward it was like if my legs was paralyzed.
Fuck I hate the population of planet earth. I want you dead, dumb mother fuckers. I want your fucking cadavers.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 10:37 pm
NEVER TAKE AWAY THE FIREARMS OF A MAN, NEVER PUT ANY KIND OF POSSESSIONS LAWS OF FIREARMS.
Some men will kill the population of a whole planet in retaliation.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 11:07 pm
Je suis encore pogner entre deux dimensions Je vous est tu parler de spots de color.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 11:15 pm
Je ne sais pas c’est quoi la drogue qui me donne, mais c’est du bon stock. Je pense que c’esf fait pour diminuer la douleur. Je suis complétement géler pis je n’ai pas pris de drogue. C’est du criss de bon stock que tu as man.
ee on Thu, 16th May 2024 11:16 pm
Tu ce qui me manque c’est t’une chienne que me suce la graine pis des cigarettes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bBRLnJxk4E
ee on Fri, 17th May 2024 7:25 am
I see that you are still making Jewish theater. A real GOD would have kill the Jews right there without the need for theater. I don’t know what The real GOD is the one that is running earth calculator: gravity, thermal, chemical, within his own holographic matrix.
Earth population is made of losers with no real value. This is why you will be killed.
ee on Fri, 17th May 2024 7:30 am
Hakeem Jeffries Asked About GOP Bill To Defund Universities Over Antisemitism On Campus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBB2Beo0bLU
this is that I mean. You are not a real GOD you are just a fraud. You don’t run earth calculators. The best you can do is low quality theater with pathetic results. Earth population is here to die, and you will die.
I am the real loser here, writting comments
ee on Fri, 17th May 2024 7:32 am
You fucking theater is annoying. WHen does your theater will lead to real result. Never. you are just a fraud.
ee on Fri, 17th May 2024 7:36 am
If you were controlling earth calculators you wound have refill earth with natural resources. You would not need to build a C40 cities as a life boat. You are just a fucking fraud with no real power.
ee on Fri, 17th May 2024 7:40 am
I lost 4 year of my life talking with losers that have no real power. You are just a fucking loser.
ee on Fri, 17th May 2024 7:45 am
This is what I mean you are just a fucking loser. You fucking worthless piece of shit theater will not allow you to save your shit earth reality. Show one instance where the principle of conservation of mass failed. I have been working with losers for the last 4 years.
French police kill man trying to burn down synagogue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwswnmZC6BI
ee on Fri, 17th May 2024 7:53 am
10:15, you are just fucking losers with no real value. This is why you are on planet earth, because you are a fucking loser.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bpwBrfDcA4
ee on Fri, 17th May 2024 8:01 am
Copper trades in three main exchanges:
1.Comex in the US,
2.the London Metal Exchange and
3.the Shanghai Futures Exchange.
This is what I have been saying. The world does not need the US anymore. Look at this the Shanghai Futures Exchange where copper is also traded. The Western nations will be destroyed to keep China manufacturing base alive. China does not need the rest of the world. You have been fucked over by the Jews and the West is still not capable of killing them in broad day light without remorse. Whites are really the losers of earth.
ee on Fri, 17th May 2024 8:02 am
This is what I have been saying. The world does not need the US anymore. Look at this the Shanghai Futures Exchange where copper is also traded. The Western nations will be destroyed to keep China manufacturing base alive. China does not need the rest of the world. You have been fucked over by the Jews and the West is still not capable of killing them in broad day light without remorse. Whites are really the losers of earth.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/us-copper-sowing-seeds-its-own-return-earth
ee on Fri, 17th May 2024 8:07 am
While stocks in Shanghai have risen sharply this year, and in London they have fallen but remain well above zero, at Comex warehouses they have fallen to near zero. This has led to massive short squeeze in US copper, with the metal trading at its highest ever premium to LME copper at over $800 per tonne (and much higher on an intraday basis).
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/us-copper-sowing-seeds-its-own-return-earth
This is what I mean, it is written above black on white, that China has received copper, London lost copper and there is no copper left in the US.