India is overtaking China as the world’s biggest oil demand growth driver in a momentous shift in the oil market where China dominated growth in the past two and a half decades.
While India’s growth rate is ahead of China’s, Indian volumes aren’t anywhere near the Chinese boom in consumption that began in the early 2000s. And they never will be.
With the pace of Chinese growth decelerating and India’s accelerating, market bulls are correct to expect that India will lead demand growth numbers. But they could be disappointed that Indian demand growth isn’t soaring at a pace similar to China’s. In the period 2000-2025, Chinese demand growth averaged 485,000 barrels a day (bpd), as pointed out by Bloomberg Opinion columnist Javier Blas.
India’s total oil demand is about 6 million bpd at present, and it is growing at around 200,000 bpd every year. This is less than half of China’s booming annual demand growth in the 2000s and 2010s.