“Oil remains the dominant fuel to 2050 in the current policy scenario,” the report highlights.
Global demand for oil will continue to rise to 2050, reaching 105 million barrels per day by 2035 and hitting 113 million bpd by 2050, the International Energy Agency said in its annual World Energy Outlook report.
The IEA’s pivot to signalling more consumption by 2050 comes amid pro-fossil fuel policies being pushed by the Trump administration in the US – one of the biggest producers of oil and gas in the world.
The IEA’s pivot to signalling more consumption by 2050 comes amid pro-fossil fuel policies being pushed by the Trump administration in the US – one of the biggest producers of oil and gas in the world.
The IEA estimate on demand is close to Opec’s view on the long-term growth. In the agency’s current scenario, which assumes no update to policy or regulations beyond those already in place, oil demand rises from 100 million bpd in 2024 to 105 million in 2035 and 113 million by 2050. Opec, a group of 12 oil-producing and exporting countries expects demand to reach 123 million bpd by 2050.
Opec, led by Saudi Arabia, and the Paris-based IEA that was created in 1974 after an oil crisis the previous year, have been at loggerheads over when oil will peak.
The production group has previously accused the agency of discouraging oil and gas investment, which it said could hurt the security and reliability of supply.
The report comes as delegates from around 200 countries are meeting at Cop30 in Belem, Brazil to continue discussions on limiting global warming to below 1.5°C, in line with the Paris Agreement goals. Oil-exporting countries of the Middle East, including the UAE – which hosted Cop28 – have accelerated plans to reach net-zero emissions by the middle of the century. They have stepped up domestic policy for more renewable energy and nuclear power capacity, as well as switching to gas instead of burning oil to power their grids.
“Oil remains the dominant fuel to 2050 in the current policy scenario,” the report finds. It noted that China, which has accounted for more than 75 per cent of oil demand growth over the past 10 years, will give way to India, which is set to become the new centre of growth in demand.
The use of coal is set to decline before 2030 and by 2035 demand could be around 8 per cent lower than in 2024. Coal use in advanced economies will have fallen by 35 per cent by 2035.
Demand for natural gas, which is seen as a transitional fuel, will continue to rise, with demand coming mainly from Asia Pacific and the Middle East.
“By 2035, the United States is both the world’s largest natural gas consumer at just over 1,000 billion cubic metres and the world’s largest LNG [liquefied natural gas] exporter, at 250 billion cm,” the IEA said.
According to the Stated Policies Scenario, which includes current and government policies and those just announced, the Paris-based agency expects oil to peak around 2030, declining to 100 million bpd by 2035. Demand for oil is expected to decline by around 200,000 bpd annually from 2035 to 2050.
Under this scenario, oil demand in India is expected to increase by two million bpd by 2035 – the largest increase in any country – and would continue to rise through to 2050, the report said.
The Middle East will experience falling oil demand due to the region’s growing shift towards gas and renewables-powered electricity. Oil demand in the power sector will decline by 1.4 million b/d however the liquids will in turn be allocated towards petrochemical feedstock as well as transportation use.
Africa and South-East Asia will, however, record large increases in use of oil with 1.2 million bpd and one million bpd of demand, respectively, by 2035.
Globally, the report, which is seen as a bellwether for the energy industry’s investment outlook, expects much future demand for oil until 2035 to come from the petrochemicals industry, which is set to consume 3.3 million bpd over the next 10 years.
