<DrumBeat: December 7, 2006 The Oil Drum Site upgrade coming; make sure your email address is up-to-date>

105 comments on Chinese demand growth continues (for oil and everything else too...)

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NASAguy on December 7, 2006 - 1:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Do we have any statistics on this, or is it just anecdotal?
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westexas on December 7, 2006 - 1:19pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Leanan has posted several stories regarding the problems in poorer countries due to energy supply and pricing issues.

But in any case, world production and exports are clearly going down.  We can argue why, but the production and exports are falling as the mathematical HL models predicted.  So, someone is conserving.  

Our problem here in the states is that our demand for imports is going up for two reasons:  falling production and increasing demand.  For our  import demand to stay constant, our demand, in terms of barrels per day, has to fall at the same rate that our production is falling.

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LoveOregon on December 7, 2006 - 1:28pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
An excellent TOD article would be for someone to document the incidence and spread of demand destruction in the poorest countries/social classes, to help us get beyond the current scattershot glimpses of energy-induced social stress in these geographic areas and social spaces.  This would be especially helpful in the current "debate" between WT and RR.
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totoneila on December 7, 2006 - 1:53pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hello LoveOregon,

I hope they include that as blackouts, less water-pumping, declining transport infrastructure of all kinds,  and other undesired effects mount: that water & food shortages will directly determine the resulting violence levels.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az  Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

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Euan Mearns on December 7, 2006 - 2:11pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hello LO - this is the best I've seen so far that has the worrying trend of haves and have nots in the data. I've been thinking of a post on this, but a cursory look so far does not show significant trends yet. A lot of the very poor countries consume so little oil - I don't think they are even recorded. The chart is from the. Norwegian energy crisis blog


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Khebab on December 7, 2006 - 3:34pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
It's a good chart, we can see clearly that the price increase since 2001 is well correlated with the growth in the Chinese imports.
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ours solaire on December 7, 2006 - 11:29pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yes, but good correlation alone does not prove cause and effect. The rise in oil price could be due to something else entirely...
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Stuart Staniford on December 7, 2006 - 8:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I covered this issue at some length in Consumption Winners and Losers.  The key graph is probably this one:





<small>
Top countries by percentage decline in oil usage 2004-2005.  Source BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2006.
</small>

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Euan Mearns on December 7, 2006 - 1:36pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I agree with Westexas on this point - a look at last years bp stat review (2006) shows that India actually consumed less oil last year (2005) and I think a continuation of this trend throughout the developing world could become very messy.  I see four main groups:

Oil exporters - perhaps the strongest group
OECD
China
The rest

And the pain and trouble is likley to start in "the rest" - big Asian countries like India, Indonesia and Pakistan, Latin American countries, FSU republics - Ukraine and Belarus, and Africa - IMO.  Could start with gas this winter - if its cold.

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westexas on December 7, 2006 - 1:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
It looks like 2005 was the Peak Export year.  Even if, by some miracle, production increases in the exporting group as whole, their domestic consumption is increasing so fast that I don't seem them showing increasing exports.
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105 comments on Chinese demand growth continues (for oil and everything else too...)

Comments can no longer be added to this story.