This article first appeared on the BNEF mobile app and the Bloomberg Terminal.
- Demand drops by 18.8 million b/d by 2050 vs 2019
- The U.S. and Europe lead declines in consumption
As demand for road fuels like gasoline and diesel recovers post-pandemic in markets such as the U.S. and Spain, long-term road fuel demand is set to drop dramatically, according to BloombergNEF.
While road fuel demand looks set to peak in 2027, the impact of advancements is not materially felt until almost a decade later. Efficiency improvements disrupt growth this side of 2030, before alternative drivetrains and autonomous vehicles cut into road fuel use in the longer term.
Emissions almost halve by 2050, but the sector gets nowhere near net zero. By the 2050s fossil-derived road fuel demand falls below levels last seen in the early 1970s. Oil-related emissions drop to 3.4 gigatons CO2 by 2050, down from almost 6.5Gt in 2019.
Fuel producers with exposure to markets like the U.S. or Europe, like BP and Shell, may see sales of diesel and gasoline decline significantly from current levels over the next decade. On the other side of the world, in markets like India and China, demand growth that ‘could have been’ fails to materialize.
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