BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 4
By Leman Zeynalova - Trend:
Global oil demand in the first quarter of 2020 is expected to decline by the largest amount in recorded history, Trend reports citing IHS Markit global consultancy.
IHS Markit estimates that global oil demand will be 3.8 million barrels a day lower than a year earlier.
“This is 4.5 million barrels a day lower than previous estimates before the spread of the coronavirus. The previous biggest decline was in 2009 in the wake of the economic crash. Demand fell by 3.6 million barrels a day in the first quarter of that year. For context, the world today consumes a little less than a 100 million barrels a day,” said the company.
HIS Markit expects that production from OPEC, the mostly Middle Eastern bloc of oil-producing nations, could continue to fall beneath its current 17-year low as buyers cut oil purchases through March and April.
Moreover, the International Energy Agency (IEA) also earlier said that global oil demand is expected to dip to lowest level since 2011 with the coronavirus outbreak.
“The consequences of coronavirus (Covid-19) for global oil demand will be significant. Demand is now expected to contract by 435,000 barrels per day (kb/d) in 1Q20, the first quarterly decrease in more than a decade. For 2020 as a whole, we have reduced our global growth forecast by 365 kb/d to 825 kb/d, the lowest since 2011," IEA said in its Oil Market Report.
The the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) says in its February Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) that global petroleum and liquid fuels demand is expected to average 100.3 million barrels per day (b/d) in the first quarter of 2020.
“This demand level is 0.9 million b/d less than forecast in the January STEO and reflects both the effects of the coronavirus and warmer-than-normal January temperatures across much of the northern hemisphere,” reads the report.
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