(Bloomberg) \u2013 Vitol\u2019s top executive in the Middle East said that many Western governments still aren\u2019t reckoning with the oil supply crunch that\u2019s rippling around the world due to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Europe and I think in the U.S., everyone is kind of asleep at the wheel and just carrying on life as normal,\u201d Tom Baker, a board member at Vitol, said at S&P Global\u2019s Middle East Petroleum & Gas Conference in London.<\/p>\n
While crude has risen near $100 a barrel, prices and volatility of oil products such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel have seen bigger spikes. That\u2019s led to a drop in demand in a number of developing countries, particularly in Asia and parts of Africa.<\/p>\n
Vitol estimates global demand destruction at around 4 MMbpd, with countries delaying purchases in the hope that a resolution\u00a0to the Iran war will bring down prices.<\/p>\n
So far, consumption has dropped less in richer countries, where the loss of supply from the Middle East is being replaced to some extent by\u00a0strategic stockpiles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve even spoken to some of the government guys in the UK and they\u2019re aware that there\u2019s a crisis, but they don\u2019t want to panic people by saying \u2018change your spending habits, do things differently\u2019,\u201d Baker said, adding that U.S. demand hadn\u2019t fallen much.\u00a0<\/p>\n
People are still driving, so it\u2019s \u201cmaybe not fully impacted on gasoline yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Traders are looking at how the situation could pan out if the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked for much longer. One key factor to consider is China, whose cuts in imports have helped ease the impact of the war on global oil markets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cChina won\u2019t indefinitely not import 5 MMbpd; and at some point when they need those barrels, the price needs to go higher and the only solver is to kill demand,\u201d Baker said. \u201cBut are we at that inflection point or are we close? Maybe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Bloomberg) \u2013 Vitol\u2019s top executive in the Middle East said that many Western governments still aren\u2019t reckoning with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[125],"tags":[464,10248,39937,184,39936,22031,39935,39938,39939,39934,39940,39933,466,7142,158],"class_list":["post-76456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vitol","tag-china-oil-imports","tag-crude-oil-prices","tag-diesel-demand","tag-energy-security","tag-gasoline-demand","tag-global-energy-markets","tag-global-oil-markets","tag-jet-fuel-demand","tag-middle-east-oil-supply","tag-oil-demand-destruction","tag-oil-market-outlook","tag-oil-supply-crunch","tag-oil-trading","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-vitol"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116682039370129518","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}