World oil demand is headed for a record this year, surpassing the all-time high reached in 2007, according to Wood Mackenzie, the Scottish energy and metals consultancy.
Less than three years after the onset of the biggest economic contractions of the past 60 years, global demand is "almost certain" to exceed the pre-recession record, Wood Mackenzie predicts in its latest forecast.
Based on provisional data for the third quarter, the firm projects average global oil demand of 86.7 million barrels per day (bpd) this year, narrowly surpassing the 2007 level. It forecasts even higher demand next year, averaging 88.1 million bpd, rising to nearly 90 million bpd in 2012.
The speed of the projected recovery is remarkable, considering that it follows two years of falling global oil consumption.
"Even if some of the recent strength can be attributed to temporary factors, our latest oils research analysis confirms that world oil demand in the third quarter of 2010 will exceed the previous quarterly high of 88 million bpd reached in the fourth quarter of 2007," said Francis Osborne, the principal oil demand analyst at Wood Mackenzie. "At the start of the year we had estimated that demand growth in 2010 would be of the order of 2 million bpd. It now looks as though it may be closer to 2.5 million bpd, with 2010 looking like one of the fastest-growing years on record."
Rising fuel consumption in China and the rest of Asia underlines the recovery. In the first nine months of this year, Chinese demand for fuels such as petrol and diesel increased at an annualised rate of 8 per cent, Wood Mackenzie reported. The corresponding growth rates for Indian fuel demand were 11 per cent for petrol and 7 per cent for diesel.
This year, the Asian oil market will be 3 million bpd larger than the North American market, the firm predicted, more than doubling the 1.4 million bpd spread between those markets in 2008.
The contrasting impact of the recession on advanced and emerging economies "could not be more stark", Mr Osborne said. "The global market for oil is diverging as never before."
Emerging markets are expected to account for 85 per cent of worldwide growth in oil this year, and 80 per cent next year and in 2012.
Wood Mackenzie projected that by 2012, oil demand from countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development would still be 5 per cent below pre-recession levels as advanced economies continued to struggle, while demand from emerging markets would be 6.5 million bpd higher.