Posted on 09/09/2025 6:22:59 PM PDT by nickcarraway
India's oil demand is likely to outpace China's this year, according to Trafigura Group.
The prediction was made by Chief Economist Saad Rahim during an event hosted by S&P Global Commodity Insights on Monday. He said that "this year, Indian demand is set to outstrip China's if you exclude strategic stockpiling."
Market dynamics
Role in global demand growth
India and China, the region's top crude importers, are major contributors to demand growth.
The two countries are at the center of how producers and traders adapt to economic changes and the rise of renewable energy. India's growth is fueled by urbanization and rising incomes, while China's crude consumption growth is slowing down, except for petrochemicals.
China's stockpiling supports overall consumption growth
Despite the slowdown in crude consumption growth, China's overall consumption growth this year has been supported by consistent builds in stockpiles.
These include both commercial and strategic reserves.
Frederic Lasserre, Global Head of Research and Analysis at Gunvor Group, said that the stockpiling of some 200,000 barrels per day in recent months has helped support demand.
Concerns over long-term sustainability of China's demand absorption
Lasserre also noted that "today, China is willing to stockpile and increase their SPRs," referring to strategic petroleum reserves. However, he warned that it may not be sustainable in the long run.
The country might not be able to absorb all of the impending market surplus, which could pose a challenge for future demand absorption as more supply comes onto the market.
How much is India just reselling the oil as middlemen for profit vs how much is really due to increased Indian domestic consumption?
China's population will be older than the United States' population by 2030, at the latest. It might already be.
China is also transitioning to EV’s in a big way. In fact they are the global leader in EV’s.
Absurd article.
China’s oil consumption is 16.6 million bpd. India’s is about 5.5 mbpd. Not Even Close.
As for storage, that guy quoted 200K bpd being stored in recent months. Call that 3 months or 90 days. That’s 18 million barrels stored. A few hours over 1 day of consumption. Silly.
China’s consumption was down about 0.7% last year. Not unheard of to have a downtick. They are typically 4ish%, and those numbers have appeared even after EVs. And yes, petrochemicals is a big source of consumption, but it ain’t 16.6 mbpd. And EVs, like in the US, are owned in cities. Those people were not driving big distance and burning big barrels/day even when in gasoline cars. So the switch to EV doesn’t affect consumption much.
India . . . grew consumption 5% last year. And will do so again.
Officially, it's 1.4 billion. But they may be closer to 1.2 or 1.3.
China or India?
China.
They think their growing population was liked by their Western investors.
They may never had that many people in the first place. So it was a lie. They did not end one child policy until 2015. It should have been done around 1990.
What? That is terrible. There never should have been a one child policy. And you can't unwind these things. Even if they tried to in 1990, it probably wouldn't have worked. They didn't really end the one child policy in 2015. It was no longer necessary to enforce it. Are people having more than one child now? No, in fact, more and more people are having no children.
It's not a switch you can turn on or off. Once you turned it off, it's off.
You put a lot of trust in China to be 100% transparent and honest.
They're paying for it now.
But they were having trouble supporting their massive population decades ago and that can be blamed on their communist policies.
The numbers come from what is called the Bible of oil.
Each year for the past 70 years, BP has compiled a global array of oil, coal and natural gas production, Reserves, and consumption for each country of the world. It is called the World Statistical Review. In recent years they have included uranium, lithium, and solar.
It is released in June of each year, and is current up to December 31st of the previous year.
In the past two years they have outsourced publication to a group called energyinst.org. when you get there and find the world statistical review link, note that there are two orange links on the relevant page. You will want the second one that says download the data. It is an enormous Excel spreadsheet and the very best array of this kind of data that you can find. A surprisingly small number of journalists are aware of it.
“ It is an enormous Excel spreadsheet and the very best array of this kind of data that you can find. A surprisingly small number of journalists are aware of it.”
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Actual data and detailed factual information is for the peasants. Our illustrious journalists have the “Narrative” on which they can rely to reach “correct” conclusions. /sarc
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