Global oil demand remains on track to peak by 2030 as the transformation of the world’s largest importer to a low-carbon economy appears ahead of schedule, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

China’s sluggish economy is the main factor behind the slowdown but its switch to electric cars and high-speed rail over internal air journeys could see oil demand peak earlier than expected, it said in its latest monthly oil report.

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The state of the Chinese economy has implications for the tanker sector with Chinese oil demand expected to account for 16% of the global total of 103m barrels per day (bpd) in 2024.

Most is imported by sea and has driven global oil demand rises over the last two decades.

China saw a post-Covid surge in demand of 1.5m bpd in 2023 but that increase is set to slow to 180,000 bpd in 2024, said the 31-member IEA.

“With the steam seemingly running out of Chinese oil demand growth, and only modest increases or declines in most other countries, current trends reinforce our expectation that global demand will plateau by the end of this decade,” it said.

IEA predictions for oil demand growth have been more conservative than those of oil producing cartel Opec.

The cartel said this week that it forecast global oil demand to grow by 2.03m bpd this year and 1.74m bpd in 2025, driven by emerging Asian nations.

But the IEA said the growth elsewhere in Asia was unlikely to replicate the Chinese impact on the global economy of the previous two decades.

It expected overall annual demand to increase by 900,000 bpd in 2024 to reach almost 103m bpd, compared to a rise of 2.1m bpd last year.

An “equally subdued” increase of 950,000 bpd is expected in 2025, it said.

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