Mounting signs of an economic slowdown and a ratcheting up of the U.S.-China trade war have caused global oil demand to grow at its slowest pace since the financial crisis of 2008, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said.
“The situation is becoming even more uncertain ... global oil demand growth has been very sluggish in the first half of 2019,” the IEA said in its monthly report.
The Paris-based agency said that compared with the same month in 2018, global demand fell by 160,000 barrels per day (bpd) in May - the second year-on-year fall of 2019.
From January to May, oil demand increased by 520,000 bpd, marking the lowest rise for that period since 2008.
Lowering its global demand growth forecasts for 2019 and 2020 to 1.1 million and 1.3 million bpd, respectively, the IEA cited China as the only major source of growth at 500,000 bpd for the first half of this year.
Demand growth in the United States and India was just 100,000 bpd from January to June, it said.
“The outlook is fragile with a greater likelihood of a downward revision than an upward one,” Reuters cited the report as saying.
But the IEA said that balance would be temporary as it forecast robust non-OPEC production growth in 2020 at 2.2 million bpd, predicting the global oil market would be “well supplied”.
