China’s Plateauing Fuel Use Is Without Precedent, IEA Says

February 13, 2025

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(Bloomberg) — A slowdown in the growth of China’s fuel use is without precedent for a country at its stage of economic development, the International Energy Agency said.

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Rapid uptake of alternative transport, coupled with shifts in the Asian nation’s economy, mean fuel use is close to plateauing and may already have done so. There’s may be a small drop in fuel use this year, the Paris-based adviser said.

“For China’s fuel growth trajectory to be leveling off at this early stage of development is without historical precedent,” the IEA said. “This slide is likely to accelerate over the medium-term, which would be sufficient to generate a plateau in total China oil demand this decade.”

China’s use of the three most important fuel products – gasoline, jet/kerosene and gasoil – declined slightly to 8.1 million barrels a day in 2024, the IEA said in its monthly Oil Market Report. This is just below 2021 levels and narrowly above 2019 use.

For 2025, the agency anticipates a modest gain of 210,000 barrels a day in China’s oil demand but there are signs the country’s fuel consumption “may even have passed its peak.”

A slump in the construction sector, historically a cornerstone of gasoil use, alongside persistently underwhelming consumer spending, which is closely associated with personal mobility and gasoline demand, has meant that recent economic gains appear to have been less oil intensive than in the past, according to the IEA.

New electric vehicles currently account for half of car sales, undercutting around 250,000 to 300,000 barrels a day of demand growth in 2024. The wider use of compressed and liquefied natural gas in road freight displaced around 150,000 barrels a day, the report showed.

Expansion in the provision of public transport, especially high-speed rail, has also contributed to the weakening in fuel use.

These fuel substitutions have suppressed demand growth by around 1.2 million barrels a day since 2019 and will cancel out a further 400,000 barrels a day this year, mainly due to accelerating EV penetration, the IEA said.