India’s oil demand growth is set to overtake China by mid-2020s, the International Energy Agency (IEA) claimed Today.
It is expected to reach 6 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2024 from 4.4 million bpd in 2017, but its domestic production is expected to rise only marginally, making it more reliant on crude imports and more vulnerable to supply disruption in the Middle East, the agency affirmed.
“We see India definitely as a key driver for oil demand growth,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said, then added that the country’s oil demand growth may slow down slightly, in line with slowing global economic growth.
China’s demand growth is likely to be slightly lower than that of India by the mid-2020s, as per IEA estimation given in November, but the gap will slowly become bigger thereafter.