I was curious to know whether the financial troubles in Europe where having much effect on European oil demand. If so, it's not too dramatic, as the blue curve in the graph above shows (from EIA data). 2010 European demand seems to be slowly recovering from the great recession, rather than plunging anew. If anything, it's "Other OECD" that's doing worst in 2010 (something that's mainly a function of Japan and seasonality). You could argue that European demand is recovering more slowly than US demand, but it's not a trend that stands out too dramatically from the noise.
I've made stacked graphs of the bigger OECD nations to see what they're actually cutting back on, as people make a big noise about how France/Japan/Germany can cut back on oil consumption and still grow their economies. I see that I uploaded the one for Japan. Note how, despite being the home of the hybrid their gasoline consumption stayed flat. Fat was trimmed elsewhere, particular in resid, which, to me, is the great trump card in the petroleum poker game. It was crucial imho to the price crash of the 80s, but hardly anyone noticed then or now, and won't be easily drawn on now, unless you expect ME citizens to not grumble about having to pay a few extra dinars etc per kw/h, and right now KSA citizens pay something like $10/month for electricity.
ReplyDeleteKLR - nice graph. Definitely looks like the reduction in recent years there came in the resid, diesel, and kerosene. Not immediately obvious to me what that means.
ReplyDeleteStuart, have a look at this post in today's DB, if you have the time. Also involves consumption patterns, KSA instead of OECD.
ReplyDeleteKLR - An interesting graph for Japan. My eyeball sees the start of a downward trend in gasoline consumption in 2005, two or three years earlier than the peak in US consumption.
ReplyDeleteThe statistics for jet fuel consumption may have a curious feature in them, depending on why and how they were compiled. Consumption statistics used to calculate national greenhouse gas emissions (reported annually to the UN Framework Commission on Climate Change) do not include jet fuel sold in e.g., Japan but used for international flights. This means that the substantial international jet traffic between Japan and the rest of the world goes uncounted for the purpose of calculating global CO2 emissions and, just maybe, here.