Cratering oil use in China shows the death spiral that could end oil — SkimNews
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- National Bureau of Statistics of China data analyzed by Carbon Brief shows Q2 oil use fell 9% overall in China, with transportation oil use dropping 16% — pulling total CO2 emissions down 1% despite rising coal use, an unusual pattern where oil rather than coal drove the decline
- Electric vehicles in China displaced more oil in H1 2025 than the UK's entire oil consumption in the same period, with EVs now roughly 25% of cars on Chinese roads (up from ~18% a year earlier), driven partly by a surge in electric heavy truck sales
- Sinopec Chairman Hou Qijun reversed his company's 2024 forecast — which predicted Chinese oil demand would peak before 2027 — declaring last week that demand 'very likely peaked last year' in 2025
- China's peak oil consumption hit 17.35 million barrels per day in 2025, compared with the US peak of 20.53 million barrels per day in 2005 and current US consumption of 19.4 million barrels per day, leaving every American using more than 4x as much oil as every Chinese person
- Chinese per capita CO2 emissions sit at just over 8 tons — about one-third of the US peak of roughly 22 tons per capita — showing China is decarbonizing at a much earlier stage of development than the US did
- The 9% Q2 oil drop represents roughly 1.5 million barrels per day of avoided demand, nearly matching the 2 million barrels per day oversupply that triggered the 2014 oil price crash
Why it matters: Sinopec's reversal from its 2024 peak-by-2027 forecast to declaring 2025 as the peak marks the moment the world's second-largest oil consumer officially acknowledged a structural demand shift. With China's electrification already credited with blunting the Iran war's oil shock, a confirmed peak strips a key pillar from long-term global demand projections and pressures upstream producers who must now plan around a shrinking customer base.
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