Tanker owners searching for a positive sign on Chinese oil demand have to look no further than Saudi Aramco.
Amin Nasser, chief executive at the Saudi Arabian state-run oil company, told attendees at the Singapore International Energy week that his company expects global oil demand to exceed 100m barrels of oil per day through to 2050.
“China is a great market, we are investing with our partners,” Nasser said, according to a report in Bloomberg.
The confidence follows the Chinese government announcing a massive stimulus package next month aimed at helping the country hit its 2024 gross domestic product targets.
Nasser’s more bullish outlook is due to growth in developing economies, which will help boost global oil consumption to 105m barrels per day this year.
His view is in contrast to the International Energy Agency (IEA), which forecasts lower global oil consumption moving forward and fossil-fuel use to peak before the end of the current decade.
IEA executive director Fatih Birol told Bloomberg TV that he expects weak oil demand to continue thanks to China.
“China in the last 10 years was responsible for more than 60% of global oil demand growth,” he said. “China was a very strong economy and China is slowing down.”
Birol said the world was entering the “age of electricity”, although he expected oil to be in use for many more years.
Oil demand from China is expected to boost tanker rates as the market heads into the seasonally strong winter.
But there are potential red flags: Kpler has pointed out that China is importing less crude oil this year and any October bump was driven by inventory restocking.
Meanwhile, Chinese passenger vehicles are increasingly running on fuels other than gasoline, with LNG-powered trucks taking a larger share of the market.
