In this article, we will look at Top 5 Countries with the Highest Oil Consumption in the World. If you wish to read our detailed discussion on how the oil market is doing in 2024, you can go directly to the Top 25 Countries with the Highest Oil Consumption in the World.
5. Russia
Consumption of barrels per day in 2023 (in thousands): 3,635
Consumption of barrels per day in 2022 (in thousands): 3,615
Year-over-Year Change in Consumption: 0.6%
Russia hasn’t had any real change in its consumption over the period 2022-2023.
Russia’s oil market has been suffering due to the European Union’s ban on Russian diesel and fuel oil. The oil market has also been on a downward trajectory due to reduced weaker demand from OPEC, hence 3% drop was experienced by the overall Russian fossil fuel revenue in July 2024; this was due to the fact that the exports were down 9% on a volume basis.
4. Saudi Arabia
Consumption of barrels per day in 2023 (in thousands): 4,052
Consumption of barrels per day in 2022 (in thousands): 3,854
Year-over-Year Change in Consumption: 5.1%
Saudi Arabia is a massive consumer of oil and why not? The Shoaiba power plant in the country is the largest fossil fuel power plant and has the capacity to extract 200,000 barrels a day of oil. However, despite the country’s ability to produce so much oil (share of 13.2% of total oil production in the world), placing it at the 2nd spot in terms of oil production, the country’s consumption is quite a lot as well, and the country’s power and water sector still consumes oil (25% of total production) whereas oil has stopped being used as a source for power generation in rest of the world.
3. India
Consumption of barrels per day in 2023 (in thousands): 5,446
Consumption of barrels per day in 2022 (in thousands): 5,209
Year-over-Year Change in Consumption: 4.5%
While the oil consumption in India increased by 4.5% in 2023 over the previous period, this trend continues to play a part in the first four months of 2024; the demand and hence, consumption of oil in the country increased by 4.8% to 3.7 million tons over the same period of 2023. This trajectory is attributed to the products diesel, gasoline, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), which together have a share of two-thirds of this total consumption in the country, according to the Indian government’s Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell.
2. China
Consumption of barrels per day in 2023 (in thousands): 16,577
Consumption of barrels per day in 2022 (in thousands): 14,970
Year-over-Year Change in Consumption: 10.7%
China, which is one of the biggest consumers of oil in the world, is responsible for driving the overall oil market of the world. While the consumption increased in the country in 2023, analysts are seeing a fall in oil the consumption in the country due to China’s economic slowdown impacting construction sector, according to Reuters. Furthermore, falling diesel consumption in the country; hence, this consumption growth is set to decrease to under 3%, which is even below the last decade’s average of 4.6%.
1. United States
Consumption of barrels per day in 2023 (in thousands): 18,984
Consumption of barrels per day in 2022 (in thousands): 18,862
Year-over-Year Change in Consumption: 0.6%
Next, we have the United States of America. The consumption in the country is expected to grow in 2024 amidst strong demand from the household sector, and the transportation sector, which accounted for 67% of the consumption of total oil in 2022. The EIA sees the consumption growing in 2024 to 20.5 million barrels per day.
“To learn about other top countries with the highest oil consumption in the world, you can check out our detailed report Top 25 Countries with the Highest Oil Consumption in the World. At Insider Monkey, we delve into a variety of topics, ranging from the best online ESL courses to business aspects; however, our expertise lies in identifying the top-performing stocks. Currently, Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology stands out as one of the most promising fields. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than NVDA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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