Crude Oil Demand is Surging

The Crude Oil Demand dropped 30% during the Covid lockdown. The global oil demand is back 95%. Since the pandemic began in March 2020 there was a shift in supply dynamics from production cuts to the slowing of production within the U.S. shale oil patch due to the pandemic.

OPEC was producing 31.58 million barrels per day of Crude Oil in Q1 of 2018. That total continued to fall through the pandemic of 2020. By Q3 of 2020, the number had dropped to 23.61 million barrels per day, due to an agreed-upon extension of 2016 production cuts. The U.S. was producing 10.49 mbpd by the end of 2018. That number rose to 12.86 mbpd in November of 2019 and fell to 10.02 mbpd in May of 2020.The key to the price action in crude and the price of gasoline at the pump during this supply drop was Crude Oil consumption, which you can see in the chart below had separated from world production at an extremely rapid rate.

In Q1 and Q2 of 2020, world oil consumption had fallen convincingly below production adjusting the tight relationship that typically exists. The demand shot higher in late Q3. Then suddenly, demand began to rise and outstrip the new, lower levels of supply, but the U.S. had shuttered many wells by then. So, the effect on exports was not easily reversed.

U.S. federal crude export ban was lifted in December 2015, U.S. crude exports went from nothing to a sizable part of the global supply. The United States exported about 8.47 mbpd of petroleum products to about 190 countries and four U.S. territories in 2019.Global consumption of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel are at their highest in more than a year. Domestic gasoline consumption is at its highest in four months. U.S. exports, however, may have a long road ahead.