China's oil demand will peak at 0.69 billion tons in 2030

China's oil demand will reach a peak of 0.69 billion tons in 2030, and after 2030, the proportion of global oil demand will gradually drop to about 12%.

On August 16, the PetroChina Institute of Economics and Technology released the 2017 edition of the "World and China Energy Outlook 2050" report (hereinafter referred to as the report). This is the second year that PetroChina has released its energy outlook report. This year's report mainly predicts energy supply and demand in 2030 and 2050.

"China's crude oil production will remain at the level of 0.2 billion tons until 2030, and then gradually decline. "Fossil energy demand will peak in 2030, and natural gas will continue to grow in 2050. In 2050, China's natural gas demand will account for about 15% of the world's total." Liu Chang, an energy industry analyst at the PetroChina Institute of Economics and Technology, said that from the perspective of natural gas demand growth, China's natural gas demand growth will reach 38% in 2020-2030, and then gradually fall back to less than 10%.

"Compared with last year's outlook, the biggest change in the 2017 energy outlook report is that primary energy demand has increased." Jiang Xuefeng, deputy dean of the PetroChina Institute of Economics and Technology, said at the press conference that with the improvement of residents' quality of life and the facilitation of transportation facilities, the energy demand of the transportation sector will continue to increase before 2050.

Last year, PetroChina predicted that China's transportation energy consumption would peak in 2030, about 0.38 billion tons, accounting for about 55% of the total oil demand that year. This year's report shows that as of 2030, domestic transportation and chemical raw material oil accounted for 97% of the increase in oil demand, of which transportation oil accounted for about 73% of the increase in demand.

The increase in transportation oil is mainly due to the increase in demand for high energy consumption such as car ownership and civil aviation oil. "In 2050, China's car ownership will be close to 0.5 billion, an increase of 1.8 times over 2015." Wang Lining, an energy analyst at the PetroChina Institute of Economics and Technology, said that by then, China's car ownership of 1,000 people will reach 350, of which the number of new energy vehicles will reach 30%.

From the perspective of oil types, diesel demand will steadily decline, and automobile demand will peak around 2025, but aviation kerosene demand will continue to grow in 2050.

"Transportation oil will account for 78% and 65% of the energy demand of the transportation sector in 2030 and 2050 respectively." Wang Lining said that although new energy vehicles, high-speed rail and other modes of transportation and shared travel have had a significant impact on transportation fuel, the proportion of fuel vehicles in the outlook period is still relatively high, and the development of air transportation has eased this trend.

"The reduction in oil demand brought about by the sharing economy this year is equivalent to about 1.4 million tons, accounting for less than 1% of domestic oil demand. It is expected that it will not have much impact on oil demand in the medium and long term (before 2050)," said Chen Rui, chief engineer of the Petroleum Market Research Institute of PetroChina Economic and Technological Research Institute.