Global oil demand growth will trickle nearly to a halt in the coming years and peak this decade, according to the International Energy Agency, with Chinese consumption set to slow down after an initial pent-up recovery.

“The shift to a clean energy economy is picking up pace, with a peak in global oil demand in sight before the end of this decade as electric vehicles, energy efficiency and other technologies advance,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in a statement.

Global oil demand growth slowing down

In its latest medium-term market report, published Wednesday, the agency forecasts that global oil demand under current market and policy conditions will rise by 6% from 2022 to reach 105.7 million barrels per day in 2028 on the back of the petrochemical and aviation sectors.

Annual demand growth, however, will thin down from 2.4 million barrels per day this year to 400,000 barrels per day in 2028.

“The downturn in advanced economies renders the global outlook even more dependent on China’s post-Covid pandemic reopening being able to maintain its early momentum, which should eventually lift global trade and manufacturing,” the agency said, while stressing Beijing’s “pent-up” consumption will peak mid-2023 after a 1.5 million-barrels-per-day rebound but lose momentum to just an average 290,000 barrels per day year-on-year from 2024 to 2028.

Supply side and spare capacity cushion

An “unprecedented reshuffling of global trade flows” and emergency releases from the strategic petroleum reserves of IEA members last year “allowed industry inventories to rebuild, easing market tensions” amid demand pick-up, the world energy body said.

On the supply side, the IEA expects oil producers outside the influential coalition of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies — known as OPEC+ — to “dominate medium-term capacity expansion plans,” including the U.S. and other American producers. Global supply capacity will rise by 5.9 million barrels per day to 111 million barrels per day by 2028 in IEA estimates, with growth lulling amid a U.S. slowdown. This will lead to a spare capacity cushion of 4.1 million barrels per day, focused in OPEC heavyweights Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

IEA continues to urge oil producers to calibrate investment decisions for an orderly transition

The IEA continued to ring alarm bells over ongoing upstream oil and gas investment, which it predicts will reach its highest since 2015 at $528 billion in 2023, simultaneously covering demand and surpassing “the amount that would be needed in a world that gets on track for net zero emission.”

“Oil producers need to pay careful attention to the gathering pace of change and calibrate their investment decisions to ensure an orderly transition,” Birol said in a statement.

The global transformation to clean energy

Toril Bosoni, head of the oil industry and markets division at the IEA, told AsumeTech’s “Street Signs Europe” on Wednesday that the global energy crisis that followed the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had “really accelerated” the transition away from fossil fuels.

“So, while we are still having strong growth and demand for oil this year as we’re seeing that last leg of the Covid recovery, over the medium term we’re really seeing that all these policy measures that governments have put in place [and] the changes that consumers are making for pricing and other reasons are making an impact.”

The IEA notes EVs will play a big role in moderating annual growth in oil demand

In a landmark 2021 report, the IEA had urged no new oil, gas or coal development if the world is to achieve net zero by 2050 — in a move widely criticized by several OPEC+ producers, who advocate for dual investment in hydrocarbons and renewables, until such a time that green energy can unilaterally fulfill global consumption needs.

“There’s a real transformation coming,” Bosoni said on Wednesday, citing the uptake of electric vehicles and energy efficiency measures across all sectors.

In its Oil 2023 report, the IEA notes that achieving the global net-zero emissions goal would require both policy and behavioral changes while observing the oil demand impact of electric vehicles.

“The adoption of tighter efficiency standards by regulators, structural changes to the economy and the ever-accelerating penetration of EVs are expected to powerfully moderate annual growth in oil demand throughout the forecast.” The IEA assumes more than one in four cars in 2028 will be an EV, with sales near 25.9 million.